Mangshui Lingyun | The fairy poetry

Description

This raw puer tea comes from my friend and manufacturer Mr. Yu Hongwen who lives in Mangshui town situated in Baoshan region near the Lancang River (upper Mekong) in Yunnan province. Old tea trees “gushu” are scattered all around the town, surrounding hills and mountains. They are countless. The first time I visited Mr. Yu was in 2015 and then every year in spring till 2019. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen each other since then, but I had learned enough to ask him for a custom raw puer recipe to produce. Gushu tea trees are usually handpicked with one bud and four leaves. Then after the “shaqing” kill-green or pan-frying process, leaves are naturally dried on nets under direct sunlight. After leaves are all sun-dried = maocha, they are selected into two categories. Well-processed buds (one bud two to three leaves) and “huangpian” yellow leaves (usually third and forth leaf), however not all huangpian have to be yellow. There are good quality huangpian and low quality – mostly all yellow leaves. The recipe I proposed to Yu Hongwen consists of good quality gushu yellow leaves 5/9 and beautiful fragrant Minggu tea buds 4/9.  Yellow leaves are mostly sweet with crystal clear infusion and low caffeine proportion. Tea buds are on the contrary fully powered on caffeine with fragrant and profound bitterness and hazy infusion due to its content of fluffy hair. This tea can be very strong with its cooling effect on the body, and its aftertaste is very flowery and long-lasting. You can pour one liter of water over 7g of this tea and it is still not totally wasted.