2023 Hummingbird Kuashan

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This tea is a wild flight into realms of sweetness not to be expected in this rather rocky region of North Eastern Lincang. The leaves all come from trees characterized as Dashu, or Big Tree, one step below Gushu. This region is rather new to the world of raw puer, and with the advent of gushu productions, a lot of the gushu is produced in single tree increments (Danzhu). This recent debut into the world of puer merely means that the price of this excellent tea is still relatively inexpensive for the great big tree quality.

The aroma on the wet leaves reminds us instantly of cream savers and watermelon bubblegum, with juicy orange notes hanging in the background. The brew itself is a study in levity, light on the tongue, sweet in the mouth, with aromas that linger in the broth and float into the upper palate. This tea is a wonderful option for those that prefer a less forceful raw puer, as it delivers its sweet flavors incrementally over a long pleasant session that despite the levity of the liquor is backed with a mineral rich body.

Kuashan is a relatively recently discovered region with a large amount of old growth trees. While the gushu are not plentiful enough to do entire gushu batches, the dashu and old arbor (trees several meters tall with trunks as large as telephone poles) still achieve the desired goal of reaching deep through the sandy earth and into the deeper clay soil rich with minerals. These teas are distinctively sweeter than many other teas in the area, barring of course real from the legendary Bingdao regions.

We offer this tea in 25 gram samples (chunks lovingly pried off the cake), whole 200 gram cakes, and a set of 5 cake tongs wrapped in bamboo leaves and totaling 1000 grams.

If you’re interested in sampling this year’s full flight of puer pressings, check out the Yunnan Flight, a set of 6 dragon balls from different regions each pressed in 7 gram balls for convenient brewing.

We recommend brewing this tea gongfu style in a gaiwan or Chinese teapot. We use 6 grams of tea in a 100ml brewing vessel with boiling water, steeping 5 second for the first few infusions and adding 5 seconds after ever subsequent infusion. Most of these puer teas can be re-infused over 15 times, when brewing in this gongfu style.

Curious about these Chinese puer tea terms, check out our growing appendix of Chinese – pinyin – English translated terms here.