2025 LvShuiTang Pure Ancient Trees (Benchmark, T5*)

Highlights:

• 100% pure 1st spring pick ancient tree leaves
• Best terroir in Lincang with reasonable pricing
• Rich, thick texture
• Long aftertaste, good huigan
• Floral-forest complex aromas
• Maximum tree estimated age: 500 years (see below “How old are these trees?” for more info)

LvShuiTang is in the top 3 best gardens in Lincang, but the other two have significant drawbacks: BingDao LaoZhai (first spring pick, like this tea) is extremely expensive (about 10 times this tea!) and XiGui (these days) is almost always found with significant pesticide flavour.

What all these 3 terroirs have in common is that the texture is much richer than the rest of Lincang, producing a tea with strong sweet aftertaste and depth that real connoisseurs go crazy for. At the same time it has the very high complexity and evolution that many of the best Lincang ancient tree teas also have.

Lvshuitang has a similar taste to BingDao but a bit less floral, while keeping the same bright-sweetness with some pungent pleasant bitterness, with matching Qi. We were so impressed with this tea and it’s the first time we offer a Benchmark-level tea that’s multiple ancient trees from Lincang. Wine lovers will particularly like this, though it’s recommended to most serious real ancient tree puerh drinkers.

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 LvShuiTang is over 1000 years (some people say less or more than this too). 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 LvShuiTang, this is one such tree. This is a genuine pure ancient tree production and accordingly this is one the very best available trees 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 the top section 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.

200g cakes.