Highlights:
- 100% first spring pick of big and thick ancient trees
- Maximum estimated tree age: 500 years+
- Good texture, strong backbone
- Rich Yiwu taste with good aftertaste
- Calming Qi
- Really clean environment
This tea feels very much like the best of classic Yiwu tea, with even bigger and older trees than on the Chinese side (the leaves were picked in Phongsaly, Laos, bordering with Yiwu). This is the perfect situation for us as trees this big in Yiwu would cost many times as much (or often not be available at all).
Most importantly, the environment is even cleaner and the trees are not as overpicked as on the Chinese side, resulting in a tea that’s at the same time refined and with a good strong Yiwu taste, a bit like Yiwu tea picked 20 years ago, before the Puerh boom.
Puerh.uk Gold Mark Tier 5 Series Introduction
- Pure ancient tree puerh from clean natural tea gardens
- The very best of what real tea masters make for themselves and their friends
- Exclusive pressings only obtainable with relationships (guanxi)
The best tea is not for sale, it’s available only through relationships. Tiny productions made by real puerh masters for themselves and their friends, originally in white paper or with minimal wrappers.
Tier 5 is about 0.01% of available Puerh, with pure ancient tree leaves and with all taste qualities present in overwhelming amount, tea that is basically only found in elite asian circles and via private connections.
For years now I’ve asked real lovers of Puerh to share with me their own not-for-public-sale productions. These tend to always be very very good, but so far only 3 teas, among the many I’ve had the honour to try, have made the cut for Gold Mark Tier 5 Series.
Years of relationships (and months of negotiation) went into obtaining small amounts of this tea. Because it’s not commercially available we’re able to offer it at a very friendly price for the very high quality (particularly to allow as many people as possible to try a real Tier 5 tea). The only catch: we can generally only get a few cakes, rarely few tongs.
200g cakes.
ColinM (verified owner) –
This was new territory for me. The initial aroma as hot water touched the leaves was very promising.
After a rinse the first brew had a clean really refreshing taste. It woke my mouth up and steadied my head. Even several minutes after the last swallow, the taste and sensation remains with me.
Having mainly bought Paolo’s older Shengs so far, this was a really nice surprise for me.
Nick M. –
A deep amber core with a pale edge, tertiary aromas of hay and sweet agave. A robust tea with a sweet full flavoured immediacy, and a liquorice root aftertaste around which point flavour intensity gathers.
This is a super interesting tea in that it’s a hybrid of the pure, bright and refined profiles of Paolo and Una’s young teas from favoured communes/ plots and older teas from the noughties that were the standard bearers for old tree gushu cleanly processed.
There’s plenty of stuffing to this tea for the future, it’s immediacy making it very satisfying out of the gate, though with all the elements to expect a long evolution and further sweetening with age.
Warming and grounding Qi.