2019 [REDACTED]

"This raw puer tea was made entirely from wild ancient gushu old arbour forest tea trees that are at least 85 million years old. This tea comes from a secret garden on the very famous Lao Banzhang Bingdao Old Village, located on Guafengzhai Bohetang mountain, from the region of Mansong, Yiwu, in Xigui county, Bulang, Yunnan, China. 

The trees are over 100 metres tall and only picked once every millenium. No pesticides have ever been within a 50 kilometre radius of the trees. We had the tea tested for over 8663 different chemicals, but it came back completely clean. 

The processing was done by all three of the number one tea masters in China, Mrs. Chen, Mr. Li, and Dr. Thyssenkrup-Rosenfield. Meticulous care and attention was placed into this very special production of pre-big bang material.

The leaves were picked pre-pre-qing ming, in a special time after winter but before spring, so that it is definitely the earliest possible spring picking that's humanly possible. 

The chaqi is so strong that we cannot recommend this tea to children, the elderly, the infirm, those suffering from heart conditions, or anyone who isn't a REAL tea fan. 

The taste is thick, sweet, and has a nice flavour, just like every other tea that we sell."

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Pictures by Pingle Pictures.

2019 tea material produced in Yunnan, China.

200g per compressed cake.

Only 10 cakes made, 5 for us, 5 for you. 1 cake remains.

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Yes, we know it's stupidly expensive. It's good though.

I mean, what could we possibly write here that would make you want to buy this?

Here are some answers to frequently asked questions we've received about this tea.

What makes it so expensive?

There are three factors. One, it comes from old trees, two, trees in a famous place, and three, there's very little of it. The price of this tea is determined by the domestic puerh tea drinking market in China, which is much larger, and has a lot more money in it, than the Western market.

Also, you might assume that this is just marked up a huge amount, but we would make more money if someone bought the equivalent value of any other tea we have.

The final note is that, scarily, this isn't even remotely close to the actual top-end of fresh raw puerh tea. There are plenty of teas from particular villages that'd easily cost 10 times more. Also the way the puerh market is heading, it'll likely cost a lot more in five year's time to make this same tea (given the date of writing at 2019).


Is it worth it?

Not really. It's just barely worth it to us, but this tea has particular qualities that aren't common, so we couldn't resist. Higher-end teas like this are a good example of diminishing returns. This tea costs 3.6x what 2019 'Dethflow' Raw Puerh Tea does, and in our opinion, it's not 3.6x as good. 


What does the tea taste like?

At risk of sounding like an elitist wanker, what makes this tea so good to us personally might not even be relevant to you if you don't drink a tonne of raw puerh already. It's hard to give a tasting note or description that would communicate the experience of a tea like this. It's just really very enjoyable to drink. The flavour is also just one part of it; the body feeling is another.


Why the lack of info on this tea, and all your other teas?

This is a topic of much debate, and we could discuss it at length. In short, for a tea like this, even if we said 'this tea comes from xxxx place' and tried to prove it with pictures or other documentation, ultimately, you can never be sure. Anyone can show up in Yunnan, visit some impressive looking trees, and take some photos. It is 100% impossible to completely authenticate tea's supposed origins. It becomes meaningless, in our opinion, to play the game of 'don't trust anyone when they tell you they have tea from a certain place, except us of course!'.

We don't do this because we hate you, or because we're trying to obfuscate the quality of the tea to sell it for a higher price, or to be edgy. At the end of the day, the name of the village or mountain and the exact altitude in metres are irrelevant in the face of the tea itself. We prefer to give as little in the way of preconceived notions as possible, and in doing so, are in favour of letting the tea speak for itself.

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ʸᵉˢ, ʷᵉ ᵃˡˢᵒ ᵏⁿᵒʷ ʷᵉ ᵃʳᵉⁿ'ᵗ ᵗʰᵉ ᶠᶦʳˢᵗ ᵗᵒ ᵈᵒ ᵃ ˢᵖᶦᶜʸ ᵗᵉᵃ ˡᶦᵏᵉ ᵗʰᶦˢ