Earth Pu'erh

This ripe style (Shou) of Pu’erh tea is in loose leaf form (Maocha) instead of the Pu’erh cakes or bricks that are normally found. Mr. Li handcrafts his Shou Pu’erh in very small, 10 kg batches, at his farm. This particular lot comes from trees that are less than 20 years old that Mr. Li planted himself. This tea has a light and extremely clean earth taste to it with a cooling aftertaste. The brewed tea has a very clean and clear amber red color (not cloudy like a lot of Shou Pu’erhs) to it and it smells of earth with a hint of chestnut.
Mr. Li’s land by Nannuo Mountain in Yunnan is at 5,900 feet (1,800 meters). To say that Mr. Li’s teas are grown with all natural cultivation methods is quite the understatement. Mr. Li is the ultimate all natural farmer and he believes that if you do anything to try and help the tea trees grow that you are adversely affecting the taste of the end product, the tea leaves. You won’t find him doing anything to help his tea trees out, he simply lets nature take its course. Mr. Li is a very skilled tea maker who learned the trade from his father who was a famous Yunnan tea master. He combined these skills that were handed down to him along with skills that he picked up while working in a large scale Pu’erh factory to create the process to create his small batch Shou Pu’erh tea. He uses a very unique process for this and it is quite time consuming and complicated as it is a handmade shou.