Guafengzhai
Loose Leaf Sheng Puer 2025
This traditional sheng puer from Guafengzhai displays a particularly complex and well-balanced flavor that is sweet and tangy with notes of papaya and cedar and hints of resinous incense and dried fruit. Tea from this micro-origin of Yiwu Mountain displays the signature velvety and rich character of Yiwu tea, all the while remaining incredibly soft due to the maturity of its old-growth forest tea trees.
2025 Coming soon!
$27.00
- Tea Origin
- Yiwushan, Mengla County, Xishuangbanna area, Yunnan Province, China
- Tea Bush
- Yunnan Dayezhong (Yunnan Large Leaf Heirloom Tea Tree)
- Tea Maker
- He Tianneng
- Harvest Time
- Early April
- Plucking Standard
- One bud, two leaves
Guafengzhai is the name of the village on the highest peak of renowned Yiwushan (Yiwu Mountain) puer origin. At approximately 2000 meters above sea level (6500 feet), it’s also the second tallest peak in all of Xishuangbanna. The mountain climate at this height experiences large differences in temperature between day and night, so the tea trees produce extra antioxidants and amino acids to weather the changes. This translates to a more complex flavor in tea.
Most of the mature tea trees in Guafengzhai are allowed to grow naturally rather than pruned small and are left undisturbed in their original forest environment. As a result, they can reach a height of several meters, and tea pickers need to climb into the branches to harvest the tea. The trees in Guafengzhai yield a particularly fragrant and soft brew with pronounced returning sweetness and longevity of flavor.
A historic puer tea mountain origin in Yiwushan
Yiwushan (Yiwu Mountain) was once one of Yunnan’s historic six famous tea mountains and a major stop on the iconic Tea Horse Road puer trade corridor. It became a place to gather puer maocha from all six mountains in the area. Even today Yiwu remains a major point of export for puer tea, since it lies merely 30 kilometers from the border of Laos to the south. This has been highly convenient for getting tea to buyers in Vietnam and Thailand.
As a result of the ongoing drought in Yunnan, Yiwu’s old forest tea trees are yielding slower and slower. Once, their leaves could be plucked every two weeks. Now, however, tea makers can only harvest from them once every few months, making true old-growth Yiwu tea ever more rare.
A long tradition of collaborative tea-making
Many tea-making families in Yiwu have been in the trade for generations. Yiwu residents today are generally part of the Yi and Yao ethnic minorities, as well as the descendants of Han majority immigrants.
Back in the 1700s during the Qing Dynasty, many Han people emigrated from Yunnan’s urban Shi’ping County to the remote peaks of Yiwu for the express purpose of setting up tea business with the people already living there. As these Han immigrants had business connections back in the city and greater access to education, they were able to offer a business partnership to the tea families of Yiwushan to market tea from their high-quality trees. They were also able to build tea factories there and brought knowledge of more skillful sheng puer processing techniques. With the long history of deep mutual respect and collaboration between these peoples, they have managed to grow a booming tea business and strong relationships that have lasted for generations now.
We source tea from one of the most highly respected puer tea makers in Yiwu, He Tianneng. He is a descendant of these Han immigrants to Yiwu and a seventh-generation tea maker.
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.
