Tongmu Rougui (Tongmu Cassia Bark)
Rock Wulong Tea 2024
Wuyi’s classic Rougui (Cassia Bark) tea bush but grown in the high-elevation gardens of Tongmu just to the northwest. With this change in terroir, the typical mineral quality of Wuyi yancha is absent, replaced instead with a coating sweetness similar to that of Tongmu’s famous black teas. Lofty cassia aromatics emerge slowly but powerfully, supported by dry notes of wood, cocoa, and grapefruit.
$35.00
- Tea Origin
- Tongmu Village, Wuyishan City, Fujian Province, China
- Tea Bush
- Rougui (Cassia Bark)
- Tea Maker
- Wu Jianming
- Harvest Time
- May 2nd, 2024
- Plucking Standard
- Zhong kai mian
Meet Tongmu’s edition of Rougui (Cassia Bark) rock wulong, made from Rougui cultivar tea bushes that have been growing in Tongmu Village for decades, just a little ways northwest of Wuyishan. Since the early 1600s, Tongmu has largely made its living selling its exceptionally sweet tea, rich in amino acids due to the high altitude of its mountain tea gardens. This carefully worked rock wulong takes Wuyi’s classic Rougui to the next level with a different terroir.
Tea makers often compare the divergent flavors of leaves from different mountains with the term shanchang qi (山场气), meaning “mountain essence.” Here the qualities of Tongmu’s distinctive soil and microclimate shape the familiar Rougui sharpness and fruitiness into an infusion that’s both familiar and unique. Brew it up alongside a traditional Wuyi Mountain Rou Gui and taste the appreciable shanchang qi of each origin.
From the Tongmu native maker of black teas who brought you the genre-breaking Drunken Peach and co-developed the standard-setting Jin Jun Mei, Tongmu Rougui shows off expert tea maker Wu Jianming’s unexpected rock wulong chops. He has developed impressive cross-disciplinary expertise in Wuyishan’s traditions of making both black and wulong teas. He’s studied with true masters of the trade, including Liang Junde of the eponymous Jin Jun Mei fame as well as the highly decorated Liu Guoying, one of Wuyi Mountain’s premiere yancha experts. Wu Jianming has even developed new techniques that combine elements from both black and wulong making methods to develop stunning high end black teas like Drunken Peach. Yet he continues to return to the classics like Rougui yancha to keep his foundational skills sharp.
