This product is a loose tea. We have procured it in loose form to accommodate a wide range of uses, such as blending with other teas, making milk tea, and using it in cooking. Loose tea is characterized by a gentler taste and a smoother, milder flavor compared to cake tea.
Wu Liang Shan Ripe Pu-erh is a Pu-erh tea well-received by regular Pu-erh drinkers and equally enjoyable for beginners.
We recommend this tea because the balance of flavor, taste, and depth of aftertaste is excellent, and both the flavor and aroma are very rich. The flavor is reminiscent of dried fruit, and the taste is mellow, smooth, and full-bodied. While these qualities can be found in other well-fermented Pu-erh teas, Wu Liang Shan Ripe Pu-erh stands out for the sheer depth behind them.
Beyond the drinking experience described above, Wu Liang Shan Ripe Pu-erh has a deep aftertaste that spreads through the back of the throat. This is not merely about flavor type or aroma type, but about the "quality" of those qualities—the three-dimensional, impurity-free taste and flavor, and the fullness that fills you when you drink it. This quality factor is determined by the "depth of flavor and aroma," and it is something we have sought during our visits to Yunnan Province.
"In Yunnan Province, you encounter Pu-erh tea everywhere you go." In ethnic minority villages, each household makes Pu-erh tea, and even a small village may have hundreds of varieties. Across all of Yunnan Province, there are thousands or even tens of thousands of types of Pu-erh tea, and in that sense, finding a Pu-erh tea to buy is easy.
However, Pu-erh tea with a deep aftertaste—mellow and rich like high-quality chocolate—is extremely rare. We encountered Wu Liang Shan Ripe Pu-erh after more than 10 days of tasting trips through various mountainous areas of Yunnan Province.
The mountains of Wu Liang Shan
Tea growing in the mountains
Generally, ripe Pu-erh tea is made from garden-grown tea, while high-quality raw Pu-erh tea comes from old trees in the mountains. Wu Liang Shan Ripe Pu-erh, however, is made from tea leaves harvested from trees over 100 years old, planted in the mountains in a semi-wild state—not in cultivated gardens. The ethnic minorities pluck this tea 1–2 times a year as part of their livelihood. Though called tea plucking, it involves climbing the trees and selecting leaves by hand one by one, making it an extremely labor-intensive task.
To the ethnic minorities of Wu Liang Shan, the tea trees in the surrounding mountains are like wild mountain vegetables. The trees have grown so large that upon entering the forest, they blend seamlessly into the surrounding landscape and are difficult to distinguish from other trees. No pesticides or fertilizers are used—because to these communities, the tea trees are simply another part of the natural mountain environment.
Tea grown in the mountains has a higher mineral content than garden-grown tea. Old trees, growing slowly with deep roots, accumulate leaves that are especially rich in minerals. These abundant minerals give the tea a rich, full taste. The principal mineral in Pu-erh tea is iron, which plays an important role in blood production and is an essential nutrient for those prone to anemia.
A worker plucking leaves high in an old tea tree — harvesting from these ancient trees is a genuinely demanding task.
Old tea trees growing in the mountains
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 trees, 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 local sourcing. 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 is 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.
