New online tea shop for Yunnan teas - Farmerleaf
Dear tea community,
I am William Osmont, with my wife Yubai, we run a small tea factory in Jingmai mountain, Yunnan. We have now opened a tea shop in which we offer our own productions as well as other interesting teas from Yunnan. You will find a lot of information about tea cultivation and processing. We hope you will enjoy the visit!
www.farmer-leaf.com
You claim that one of your teas is from 1800 year old trees? This is an extreme claim and needs extreme evidence? Can you back up this claim?
Can you find that one? I found two quotes:
‘tea has been cultivated there for 1800 years.’
‘Our natural tea gardens are 5 to 70 years old, 40 years old on average. Most of them are located near Da Ping Zhang, at a similar altitude.’
The tea gardens are estimated to be 1800 years old according to the UNESCO World Heritage application (http://whc.unesco.org/fr/listesindicatives/5810/). The first tea trees planted there have probably all died since then. The old tea trees we harvest are more likely to be “only” a couple hundred years old. It is quite hard to estimate the age of ancient tea trees. On the UNESCO website, it is claimed that “less than 10% of the tea trees are aged500-1000 years, about 30% are 300-499 years old, and the average age of the tea trees in the entire biocenosis is about 200 years.”, this doesn’t seem to be peer-reviewed scientific evidence though. Anyway, what matters is the result in the cup, and i can tell you this one will make you tea drunk.
Looks like they’re only saying the garden has been a garden for approx. 1800 years, rather than saying that individual trees are 1800 years old.
I think I’ll make an order and sample most or all of your puerh. What’s the worst that could happen? :P To be honest, some of the prices seem oddly low to me, but I appreciate the honesty and my curiosity is piqued.
Our retail prices for international customers are the same as in China, you don’t pay more than if you bought the tea in Shanghai or Beijing.
We make Jingmai tea from the fresh leaves in our factory and we source tea from other farmers. That’s how we can offer affordable prices.
That’s fair. I’ve had experiences with other tea sellers online being able to offer lower prices by cutting out some of the middlemen, as it seems you are doing here. It’s just that it can sometimes be hard to trust vendors without the experience of others who’ve ordered and reviewed and such.
That said, I placed my order a little bit ago, and I’m excited to give your teas a try!
If the tea is good & fair priced we will like it :)
Look forward to seeing some reviews
I have been enjoying their teas for a couple of years now. Time is an issue though for reviews working long hours daily.
But then I have been enjoying other people’s teas snd it has been a while since I commented on a tea…
Of the 2016 line up my favourite was the Jingmai Gulan of which I tried 50 or 100 grams. On that judgement I bought a cake which is in storage.
P.s. I just went through my stash of samples and left overs and I saw a packet with around 5 to 7 grams of that tea. I am happy to take it with me for you to try when we go to HK next month. Please let me know.
Rui, yes, that sounds good! My brother is getting married next month—when are you coming in?
We should be in HK on the 19th of November but probably too tired to do anything and knowing my dear wife she has other plans with our Chinese friends. We can always meet early the following week or I can leave the tea at the reception if you prefer.
We should be able to meet—if you and the wife have time, you can come by for a tea session!
Their 2016 Jingmai Gulan is one of the finest sheng from this year. A really nice tea. I thought they had soldout (from Bannacha) but seeing they have some on the new site I’d be tempted to break my tea buying moratorium
To be fair having just desovered a reliable way to order from Taobao most of my tea buying this yearhas been focused on older teas. So from this year, Wt2, Untitled (best of the year), Daily drinker (hated it at first but as I’ve drunk through the cake it’s grown on me), Head (eh). From bannacha the Gulan, jingmai shengtai (nice but wouldn’t rate overall), Autumn Gushu (what the name say, but I don;t really dig Autumn sheng, one of their single trees teas (great but only had a sample so couldn’t really get to know the tea. From you, your Man Zhuan and Man Lin, nice but I just can’t get on board with your single mountain teas for some reason.
The Gulan’s not the best tea ever, but it is priced extremely well and seems to be to me what they claim. One thing I will say against it is that I doubt that it will age that well.
Try our Si He Zhai from this year or San He Zhai from 2011, 2012 or 2013 for a blended cake. Have you tried the 2012 YS Impression? It’s definitely a budget cake but it will age well. Gu Hua Xiang is an Autumn blend from 2012 which you might like. I have always found Jingmai to be an elusive area. Hats off to William for offering some affordable tea from Jingmai.
I will definatly keep those in mind. I really like your impressions blends, and have had a cake each of the 12 and 14. I think the 2012 is a great tea for the price and one I’ve been meaning to tongup. Not sure about the 14, still got a 1/2 left. I think I’ll drag it out for my morning tea.
I always thought that the reason William could get a good deal on Jingmai tea is because he married into tea gardens.
San He Zhai is a good one. Don’t forget the Shang Chun Mr Yunnan Sourcing , else I will have to add to this list.
@Yunnan Sourcing, This may cost you a few grams of something…..LoL!
I think I only have the 2012. I don’t recall the 2011 one. I think your Ai Lao from 2011 was nice too. Ban Po Lao Zhai was nice too if I recall correctly.
@mrmopar ok write me a ticket… I still like the Autumn Ban Po the best (same year).
I am curious about your tea and would try it if you offered epacket or some other affordable shipping option, or even a sample package that included shipping. I’m ok with paying a $15 flat rate if I’m placing a large order, but I don’t do that until I’ve had the opportunity to try the tea first. I’m just not willing to pay $15 to ship a few 20g samples.
That’s how I felt, and I’m in Hong Kong and it’s still $15. Any chance William can send me some samples by regular airmail or SF Express?
Hi, thanks for your suggestions. I have made shipping free in China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
E-packets are not available at our local post office in Puer city, we’re working on a solution. You can register to our newsletter list and I will send an email when we’ll update our shipping policy. Meanwhile, you can order samples of our teas on our French based website that we’ve run for five years: www.bannacha.com
I hope that helps.
William will you be moving the items from the old site to the new one? I had a hard time trying to figure the other site out. The new site is very easy to use and I will probably get some items from the other site if you switch it over.
Merci William! Just ordered six samples. Looking forward to trying your teas. If they meet my needs, I will definitely pick up some cakes in future!
Samples received! Thank you, that was quick. I like your sample packaging, and thank you for the extras. I’ve never seen bags like the ones you use! I’ll give the teas a try in a week. The dry pu erh definitely smells interesting.
I had to pay US$4 since the package was delivered to my home—next time I’ll make sure it goes to my office (no charge)! ;)
I may be busy… but I’m not opposed to grabbing multiple 100gs off of you and splitting it up for a few people in the US to try. It’ll save some time and postage on your end and generate some reviews which is great. Just need 3 more interested and I can use my November tea funds towards this
Great, in this case, i will directly pack them into 20g bags, that will be easier to split.
William would you rather message here or email? My goal is to save you time and money but provide the widest exposure. It’s my pleasure to split stuff for you, but if you already have it done I will arrange a small group buy with others. I’m pretty sure we can figure something swell out : )
Looks like you’ve probably already got enough people, but I wanted to chime in that I’m interested just in case.
How about I keep taking in interest until November 1st. No limit. I’ll have details after I speak to William and look at getting a wide sample base of multiple pu, oolong, ane some morning black : )
Works for me. I’m mostly interested in raw puerh. I’ve had one oolong and I don’t know what morning black is but I’m open to whatever.
Thank you, Liquid Proust, you can collect the orders and I will send all of the samples to you with a 50% discount on the original price of each sample. I can put each order in a separate bag so that you’ll just have to dispatch them. Just send me an email when it’s ready.
I have a count of 10 and then I’ll just put it to 12 because I have some friends I can get into this; also, no one is locked in so no worries : )
Liquid Proust (me)
elena z
curious
Dr Jim
Inkay
nishnek
Zennenn
Matt Warren
Babble
Haveteawilltravel
I want to send one mass email where we can all respond so I need everyone to please make sure you are following me. Would like to start that message thread tonight.
Your about page lists Zhong Xiao Ye Zhong as the main varietal grown on the farm, but I’ve been told camellia taliensis is also known to grow in the Jingmai Mt. region, and is commonly associated with moonlight white (assuming that refers to yue guan bai, although I know ‘moonlight’ gets thrown around a bit).
Is your moonlight white produced from c. taliensis? Is it common for the tea to be produced from taliensis, or is that misinformation?
I haven’t heard of Camellia Taliensis in Jingmai. However, Camellia Taliensis is very common in Jinggu, where they make a lot of Moonlight White (aka Yue Guang Bai) indeed. They feature larger buds and leaves, which gives them a beautiful look.
Our Moonlight White is made of typical Camellia Assamica from the natural tea gardens of Jingmai. The leaves are smaller than Jinggu Moonlight White, but I would say the taste is richer and the soup more full-bodied.
My friend and I are very happy with everything we bought from you so far, William. I’d just like to know how long you’ll continue to ship from France, since for us folks in the neighborhood this means no hassle with customs.
Cheers!
Thank you for your support, www.bannacha.com will continue to live! We’ll offer a limited selection of our Farmerleaf products, mainly Pu-erh tea. I know customs can be a problem and we’re working on a better long term solution to address the issue.
Thank you for supporting Bannacha!
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