Da Xue Shan Wild Raw Pu-erh Tea 2020 was Released

We have launched 2020 wild puerh tea. This wild tea is from Da Xue Shan located in Lincang of Yunnan Province, China. We started to introduce Da Xue Shan Wild tea since 2010. But 2020 version was completely renewed. This year, we changed the source of tea, the producers and the production method too.

Why wild tea is delicious

Wild tea tree is not the tree planted by human, but it is the tea tree grown naturally in the mountains. It is a particular type of tea called Camellia Taliensis. Some people may think that the taste of wild tea is not easy to accept. Because the word "wild" is often associated with roughness, bitterness, astringency, etc. But if you think carefully, wild food always gives excellent taste, just like wild mushrooms, wild herbs, wild fish, wild shellfish, wild vegetables, and other wild ingredients are overwhelmingly delicious. What wild food have in common is that its taste is very clean yet complex, and the aftertaste is very strong. When you drink wild tea, the taste is rather sweet and flavour stay on our palate for a long time.

We found the new source of wild tea in Da Xue Shan

Last year, while staying in Yunnan, I visited various places in Lincang and gathered information to develop new resources of wild tea. I once visited a small village in the remote mountain through the introduction by our tea friend. We met our friend’s relative who is making a living with brackens. They collect brackens in spring, process it into a dried product and then supply to a buyer. Their village is located nearby Da Xue Shan. According to them, those brackens are supplied to Japan for making Sansai Soba or Udon. They knew in great detail where wild tea was growing, as they wander the mountains in search of brackens all the time. To my surprise, they were quite wealthy. The income from selling brackens is surprisingly good and therefore, they are not really interested in wild tea. They taught us which village to visit and who to look for. Thanks to their introduction, we got to know some people and we succeeded to find the new resources of wild tea in Da Xue Shan. This year, to get the fresh tea leaves of this wild tea, I asked our long-term tea manufacturer to secure the material. We have been working together for many years in producing Yunnan teas. In order to obtain the fresh tea leaves of wild tea, it is necessary to confirm the order quantity in advance. Besides, it is a must to go to the villager's home early on the day they collect the fresh tea leaves, and wait on the spot to pay cash to them to grab the right quality of the fresh tea leaves. After all, it is not easy to secure the genuine wild tea as it is so rare and in high demand. The reason I used the term "genuine” is because in recent years, Camellia taliensis is widely planted in common tea gardens. Nowadays, those farmed camelia talaiensis has often been sold in Yunnan as "wild tea”. In fact, more than 95-98% of what is called wild tea in Yunnan is this type of tea. Even if these teas are wild species, they are not exactly the wild tea because they are cultivated by human hands. The most importantly, the taste of those farmed camelia taliensis is not as great as the genuine wild tea.

We made an improvement on process in 2020

Starting from this year, we wanted to improve the process of making wild tea, so we changed the tea maker. We outsourced wild tea to a person who currently produces most of our pu-erh tea. The main reason of changing the tea maker this time is to conduct pan-frying process at an ideal temperature. I wanted to minimizes the thermal decomposition of tea ingredients during pan-frying. If tea is fried at the optimum temperature, it makes the taste of the tea smoother and richer. It is just like stir-fried vegetables. If vegetables are over-heated, you will not be able to enjoy the original taste and flavour of vegetables. If vegetables are stir-fried with appropriate heat it preserved the fresh scent and nice texture. The process of frying tea is the same as making stir-fried vegetables. As a result of these improvements, the Da Xue Shan wild tea produced in 2020 has a very smooth liquid quality. It gives a refined drinking sensation with richer flavour. It gives a sweet fruity note and a hint of sweet undertone. When this tea is aged for some time (without oxygen is ideal), it will develop sweeter note like wild raw honey.

For more on how raw Pu-erh is made, aged, and stored, see What Is Raw Pu-erh Tea?.