Highlights:
- 1 single extra tall (gaogan) ancient tree in the forest
- SanChaQing is the best garden in Manzhuan
- Extremely pure, ethereal, delightfully clean
- Strong aftertaste and sweetness, low astringency
- Strong, complex aromas
- Peaceful and powerful forest Qi
Extremely rewarding both for the seeker of real single ancient tree puerh and for the beginner wishing for an elegant, sweet, aromatic, flavourful tea with low astringency but a lot of depth. Drinking this Manzhuan is like being immersed in the pristine forest where this extra tall tree was picked (at great effort and cost).
Ethereally light, gentle strength, salivation inducing with a moderate amount of nice clean bitterness, very presence-enhancing Qi, very dynamic (like all good single tree are). Best for a focused session, but its flawlessness will impress the most demanding tea guest too.
How old are these trees?
All tree ages are approximations, and one should always doubt when an age is given as a single number. There are no certain scientific methods to identify the age of a tea tree. The only possible way to tell how old (and healthy) a certain tree is is by drinking its leaves and comparing it to its neighbours: the older the tree is, the thicker the soup and the more comfortable the ChaQi and your body in general.
The consensus among the most reliable tea experts about the age of the oldest standard puerh varietal trees in Yiwu/6 Famous mountains tea area is approx. 500-800 years. However people, even experts, have very different opinions about what age of tree is in a specific area.
So there always is uncertainty in this topic and we won’t pretend otherwise, we simply say: If you or your favourite expert think there are 500+ years old in Yiwu/Manzhuan, this is one such tree. This is type 1 gushu, the best category of ancient tree available in the area. Best largely means oldest, but healthiest/biggest is also very important.
You can find more details about reference tree ages on the Benchmark ancient tree introduction under “Age of trees”.
Puerh.uk Benchmark Ancient Tree Series Introduction
- The best possible ancient tree tea that can be obtained in a given specific garden
- Our most significant contribution to making available a type of puerh that was not available before
- Super strict quality criteria (standard puerh varietal only, classic puerh areas only, 1st spring pick, extremely clean environment, ancient trees that have never been cut, healthiest and biggest trees only chosen for single trees production)
The best tea is not for sale, it’s available only through relationships. Tier 5 is about 0.01% of available Puerh, with ancient tree leaves only with all taste qualities present in overwhelming amount, tea that is basically only found in elite asian circles and via private connections.
Benchmark ancient tree Puerh is a subset of Tier 5, and particularly means: this is highest expression of ancient tree puerh from a specific garden, so it can be used as “benchmark” to tell whether other puerh is truly ancient tree or not.
Puerh of this quality has never been made before in history (only in the last 10 years), this is the most exciting frontier of tea at the moment as far as we’re concerned. Please see the full Benchmark ancient tree introduction page for more info.
30g ceramic jars (a bit more than 1oz), 200g cakes.
Gideon (verified owner) –
This tea really is something else. The first session I had with it made me fall in love with it, strong classic yiwu sweetness and powerful qi, a pleasant cooling camphor like sensation in the very back of my throat, also a feeling of expansion into the very depths of my lungs, like I could breathe deeper than ever before (both of these sensations lasted all day). There is a cake of this tea with my name on it, and I sincerely look forward to integrating it with my qigong.