2023 Ban Pen Gushu Black Tea

‘23春 | 云南 班盆古树红茶 

This is a Yunnan sun-dried BLACK TEA (HONG CHA).

A premium, micro-batch black tea made from high quality Spring Gushu material, lightly oxidized in small piles for just under 6 hours to retain most of the material's original gushu character. This was then completely sun-dried without any oven baking, to ensure perfect aging down the road. A very subtle, nuanced black tea intended for quiet sipping.

A delicate fragrance of honeyed water and ripe Chinese peaches. Notes of fresh melon and barely-ripened pear in early steeps, in a smooth, lubricating soup. There is no hint of that ubiquitous one-dimensional roasted-yam sweetness found in mass-produced black teas made from terrace material. Later steeps bring on unroasted hazelnuts and hint of sun-baked leather. It’s a black tea that wears its sheng puerh roots on its sleeve, excellent to enjoy now, while retaining a strong potential to develop differently with age. 

This level of black tea is not commonly found on the market given the cost to produce and scarcity of such material, normally reserved for raw puerh. We commissioned such a high-quality black tea for our die-hard raw puerh fanatics who were looking for a similar experience (and aging potential) in a black tea form.

Also available in bamboo-wrapped tongs of 5 cakes (1kg) for long-term aging.

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