Huang Wu Lin Pu-erh tea has a strong taste and rich flavor, providing a lingering sensation down the throat when you drink it.
This tea is produced in a small village in the mountains of Lincang. One of the characteristics of the Lincang mountainous area is its dry, desert-like climate and highly viscous red soil.
In this arid region, the tea trees appear quite shabby due to the harsh conditions, but high quality can be expected. On fertile land, tea grows quickly, resulting in a lighter taste and lower mineral content. In contrast, tea grown in a harsh environment over time has a much stronger taste. These tea trees have been cultivated in their villages for thousands of years. Following traditional farming methods, after the tea trees were planted, they were left in the fields without maintenance. This form of natural farming means the tea is wilder, with no pesticides or fertilizers used, and weeds were not removed except just before harvesting to secure a foothold. This cultivation method has been inherited from their ancestors. In this nearly-wild condition, the tea becomes very rich in taste.
Visiting the Village in the Mountains to Find Naturally Farmed Tea
The real thrill of drinking Pu-erh tea lies in enjoying the complex and robust taste of naturally cultivated tea at a lower price. In fact, if you were to ask for oolong tea, green tea, or black tea of the same quality level, the price would be unimaginably high. However, not all Pu-erh teas from Yunnan meet these criteria. Over 90% of the Pu-erh tea-producing areas in Yunnan have been visited by tourists after the development of roads, leading to the discontinuation of traditional natural cultivation methods in many areas. Many tea gardens have shifted to modern agricultural methods using fertilizers and pesticides. When this happens, the tea loses its richness in taste, yet the price rises unnecessarily. We seek tea with a thick taste made through natural cultivation, spending a month each year in the mountains of Yunnan to purchase tea. If you want high-quality tea, you must go to remote mountain areas.
Unique Scent Produced by Simple Production Equipment
Huang Wu Lin Pu-erh tea is produced in a very remote area where the producer lives a simple life with insufficient production facilities. The frying pan used for production is small and the iron plate is thin, making it difficult to maintain a constant temperature. As a result, the tea leaves tend to overcook during the pan-frying process, giving the tea a slight flavor of roasted soybeans. This scent is common in many younger Pu-erh teas. If you rinse the tea thoroughly before brewing (two to three rounds with boiling water), you can enjoy a clear flavor from the subsequent brews. Despite the toasted flavor, the tea's bold body and thick taste make it very popular. Over time, this tea develops a scent similar to white tea, with grassy notes reminiscent of straw and hay. After several years of storage, the flavor of honey, vanilla, caramel, and dried fruits forms, and the roasted soybean flavor from the first year becomes almost unnoticeable.
Tea Leaf Quality and Processing Technology
After venturing into tea sourcing for some time, I concluded that there are two options in selecting Pu-erh tea: first, choose medium-quality ingredients cultivated near the city with well-processed ingredients, or second, choose the finest ingredients from remote areas with a slightly fragrant flavor like roasted soybeans due to uneven roasting temperature. It's a challenging choice. For teas like this product, which have a strong taste and high-quality raw materials, I prefer the tea even if the roasting temperature is a bit high and the new tea's flavor isn't perfect. We hope you enjoy the overwhelming taste of these extremely high-quality, naturally grown ingredients. If you find the new tea's flavor unappealing, a few years of aging will create a fruity flavor like dried dates or fruits, dramatically improving the tea's drinkability.
Naturally cultivated tea gardens do not look like typical tea gardens. When you drink Huang Wu Lin Pu-erh tea, your face will flush, your body will warm up, and you will feel relaxed. Mineral-rich teas dilate blood vessels and promote better blood circulation, so drinking quality tea warms your body and relaxes you.
Focus on Sourcing Naturally Cultivated Tea
Since 2010, we have been visiting Yunnan Province every spring. Over the years, we have built connections with many famous tea regions. However, our focus is not on a region's fame, but rather on tea with transparency and a long-lasting aftertaste. To achieve this, we focus on remote mountain villages, selecting tea gardens with ancient tea tree, high altitudes, and no fertilizers, sourcing through unique logistics channels. For more details, please visit the following page.
In Yunnan, teas claiming to be from famous regions are produced in thousands of locations, using leaves from other areas, and can be found everywhere—from airports and convenience stores to supermarkets.
What complicates matters is the surprising phenomenon where imitation teas made from leaves in remote areas are of higher quality than the genuine articles. This is especially common with Pu-erh teas from Lincang, and it is a well-known fact among professionals involved in sourcing locally. For more details, please visit the following page.
In Yunnan Province, there are long-established brands like Dayi and Zhongcha. These brands are renowned because their teas produced before 1990 are highly valued.
So, why are these older teas considered special? Many people assume it's due to long aging, but in reality, the tea leaves used at that time were naturally grown without fertilizers, resulting in their superior quality.
Therefore, even if current teas are aged for a long time, they will not reach the same quality. For more information, please visit the following page.
