Old Bitter Tieguanyin
Anxi Wulong Tea 2026
Old Bitter Tieguanyin was harvested from three hearty old seed-grown tea bushes that are over a century old. These very old tea plants have an unusual strong bitter flavor that quickly turns smooth, buttery and coating with notes of sweet tomato. Fully hand-crafted with a light touch for an airy green character.
Note: We recommend brewing only 3 grams at a time. This tea’s bitterness is potent and will not be to everyone’s taste.
Original price was: $20.00.$16.00Current price is: $16.00.
- Tea Origin
- Anxi County, Fujian Province, China
- Tea Bush
- Old Tieguanyin Bush
- Tea Maker
- Zhang Shuiquan and Zhang Qingmu and Zhang Qingjian
- Harvest Time
- April 15th, 2026
- Plucking Standard
- Zhong kai mian
This very limited lot of tea was harvested from three individual seed-grown Tieguanyin bushes that are over a century old. These hearty old tea bushes grew from seed and survived only through immense vitality and a struggle against the elements—most tea bushes do not live past a century, as disease, pests, and natural disasters often cause them to wither and die. It is very rare to encounter specimens of this small shrub type of tea plant (as opposed to the tea trees found in Yunnan) that exceed a hundred years in age. This tea offers a chance to experience an heirloom old-bush tea that has grown entirely without human intervention, aside from pruning.
These three old tea bushes originally grew at the edge of a cliff in one of the Zhang family’s tea gardens. The current tea maker’s late grandfather recalled them growing there even in his childhood, and noted that most old tea trees in Anxi were cut down and replaced with food crops during the famine of the 1960s. Much later, that tea farmer’s son, Mr. Zhang Shuiquan, spent an entire day digging up and transplanting just one of those three surviving bushes, roots and all, to the edge of the tea garden near the family home for ease of harvesting and pruning. This transplanted old bush has settled in and thrived with its new neighbors of persimmon, osmanthus, and Chinese plum trees near the Zhang home, and it produced the majority of this tea. The two old bushes remaining at the original cliffside go un-pruned, so they produce very little usable leaf each year.
The folks of the local village cherish these three trees as treasures, valuing them as a traditional herbal remedy for their potent anti-inflammatory and detoxifying properties. The Zhang family has shared a small amount of this precious tea with us this year.
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.
