Highlights:
- True ancient tree Yiwu (and LBZ), a real contrast with what’s usually sold as ‘ancient tree’
- High sweetness, thickness, aftertaste, strength, aroma, complexity
- Low astringency (compared to other attributes)
- Qi is noticeable and extremely comfortable
The terms ‘gushu’ and ‘ancient tree’ are so terribly overused it’s not even funny anymore. Let me set things straight: 100% ancient tree is a very rare grade that, unless you’re very lucky, you’re unlikely to have tried before (for core areas and sought after single estates like Yiwu) for a few reasons:
- It takes a lot of relationships to get this kind of material. In CYH’s case, over 20 years of living the majority of the year in Yiwu producing elite puerh and literally being among the first pioneers in the re-discovery of ancient tree puerh.
- Virtually no-one is picking their own leaves, instead relying on third parties who add small tree leaves to bulk up the weight
- No one else sold online or in the west has the reputation for 100% pure ancient tree that Chen Yuan Hao has.
- In the rare case a commercial producer get their hands on some of this material, the pricing are generally much higher (because it’s the only thing they got and they make a tiny )
Of course the usual 10-20% ancient tree with the rest big/small tree for Yiwu (which is what normally even the connoisseurs public understands to be gushu) actually performs pretty nicely, and in truth it’s only easy to see in a direct comparison with CYH tea where the true difference lies.
Also, clearly there actually are 100% pure ancient tree productions made from leaves outside of core areas, but these are simply not as good as the core areas puerh offered by CYH. This is not even hard to see, again brew side by side and the truth of why Yiwu and other small patches of core areas (parts of Menghai, small enclaves like Bingdao lao zhai and Xi gui, etc) are simply better will be apparent.
That was a lot of words! Don’t trust words! The only thing you can trust is your own mouth and judgement. Try these teas against other teas that claim to be ancient tree and make up your mind. Brewing them “hard” really helps highlighting the difference, you can refer to the following video for an example of the method I use to brew this amazing tea to its best potential. In the video I brew CYH 2021 ChaWangShu but the same method can be applied to most 0-5 year old Puerh.
Full cakes can be bought at the official Chen Yuan Hao shop.
Pictures show some examples of the available teas.
Nicholas (verified owner) –