Mengding Yu Lu (Jade Dew)
Green Tea 2024
This version of Mengding Ganlu was harvested on the same day from the same mountain as our standard Sweet Dew, but from a different garden and cultivar. The Jade Dew’s Fuding #9 tea bush presents sweet notes of artichoke and hot toast with a potent mineral depth.
Note: Jade Dew is sold out for now, but if you missed it, consider signing up for next month’s Tasting Flight. Subscribers will find a bag of it in their April delivery.
$19.25
- Tea Origin
- Mengding Mountain, Ya'an City, Sichuan Province, China
- Tea Bush
- Fuding #9
- Tea Maker
- Luo Ping
- Harvest Time
- March 7th, 2024
- Plucking Standard
- One bud, one leaf
This version of Sichuan’s early harvest Mengding tea is an excellent study in how both the tea bush cultivar used and the location of the tea garden have dramatic effects on the resulting final character of the tea.
Jade Dew was made with the Fuding #9 bush, while this year’s standard Sweet Dew was made from the smooth and fragrant Fuding Dabai bush (one of the two preferred cultivars for making Fujian white tea like Silver Needle). Both of these cultivars are transplants from the Fuding region of Fujian Province, where white tea originated. However, the very different soil and climate conditions of Mengding Mountain make for a very different flavor than the tea grown in Fuding.
Furthermore, the longer time a variety of tea plant is given to adapt to a new climate, the more it changes. The Fuding #9 cultivar was brought to Sichuan in the 1990s, and has been grown and propagated there since then. Interestingly, after several decades in Sichuan, Fuding #9’s flavor is similarly sweet yet stronger and more mineral than Fuding Dabai, and it now bears some resemblance to the local tea cultivars that originate in Sichuan.
No chemical fertilizer, pesticide, or herbicide was used in the production of this tea. Click here to read more about our promise to fair trade and the environment.
