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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Raw pu-erh tea from 2019.
Only 10 cakes made, 5 for us, 5 for you. 1 remains.
Yes, we know it's stupidly expensive. It's good though.
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I mean, what could we possibly write here that would make you want to buy this?
Here's some answers to frequent questions we've gotten about this tea;
What makes it so expensive?
3 factors. It comes from old trees, in a famous place, and there's very little of it. The price of this tea is determined by the Chinese pu-erh tea drinking market, 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 pu-erh tea. There are plenty of teas from particular villages etc. that easily cost 10 times more. Also the way pu-erh is heading, this tea will probably cost a lot more in 5 years for the same thing.
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 Dethflow does, and 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 pu-erh 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 x place' and tried to prove it with pictures etc, you can just 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. 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 pre-conceived notions as possible, and believe in 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
All orders are shipped from our HQ in Melbourne within 1-2 business days, using Australia Post.
Australia: $9.95 AUD flat-rate standard shipping, free above $75 AUD. $14.95 AUD flat-rate express shipping, free above $100 AUD.
New Zealand: $20 AUD flat-rate, free above $90 AUD.
Asia: $25 AUD flat-rate, free above $150 AUD.
North America: $30 AUD flat-rate, free above $150 AUD.
Europe: $35 AUD flat-rate, free above $150 AUD.Use boiling water (100C).
We recommend using approx 1g of tea per 15ml of water for gongfu-style brewing in a teapot or gaiwan. Rinse the leaves once and then brew as usual. You can re-steep the leaves several times until there's no flavour left.
For Western-style brewing in a larger teapot, use approx 5g tea per 100ml of water. You can re-brew the leaves a few times.
To brew direct in a mug, use 1-2g of tea in the bottom of the cup, fill to top with boiling water, and drink once cool. Re-fill the cup with more water when you've drunk 1/3rd of the tea. Repeat until there's no more flavour left.
All of our teas are suitable for long-term storage and ageing.
Keep your tea away from sunlight and strong smells, and somewhere with stable climate conditions.
You can keep it sealed inside the re-usable bag the tea comes in, or another non-porous container.