Aged Jingmai Shu
Loose-Leaf Shu Puer 2003
A naturally aged 20-year-old shu puer, worked with a light touch and then stored in Pu’er City to mature since 2003. Exemplary softness and sweetness, accompanied by aromatics of camphor and old forest wood. Its dark flavor has shed all heaviness and earthiness for a taste as clean and light as spring water.
$24.00
- Tea Origin
- Jingmaishan, Lincang City, Yunnan Province, China
- Tea Bush
- Yunnan Dayezhong (Yunnan Large Leaf Tea Tree)
- Tea Maker
- Chen Keke and Li Dong
- Harvest Time
- April
- Plucking Standard
- Young leaves, grade 2-4
It’s rare to see so much care taken in the production of a shu puer of this age. Single-origin and lightly ripened shu puer teas were even more uncommon then than they are now. Now with the benefit of two decades of maturity, you can get a taste for how these production techniques develop with age.
A 20-Year Journey of Aged Puer
The leaves of this tea began their journey in spring of 2003, when they were plucked from their bushes in the Jingmai Mountain Ecological area of Yunnan’s Lincang region. Sun-withered, rolled, pan-fixed and sun-dried according to the traditional methods, these leaves became the mao cha (raw material) for a batch of Shu Puer.
Over the span of several weeks, these leaves were kept at specific humidity and ripened in piles according to the wodui ripening method, but with a twist. The makers of this batch of tea used an approach that was newly invented at the time, called qing fajiao, “light fermentation.” The technique is to work with a light touch, to only just introduce the ripened flavor of shu puer to the tea, soften its green-ness and astringency, but also preserve some of the fresh herbal complexity of the high-quality mao cha.
The finished tea was then moved to the excellent aging conditions of Pu’er City (then called Simao), where the leaves further matured their flavors in storage. Now over 20 years old, these leaves bear surprising character. Their flavor wraps up qualities of aged shu and sheng puer tea all in one package.
