Tengtiao Dianhong Black From Ancient Tea Tree 2015

Handmade with Tengtiao maocha produced from Mengku town, Lincang city in the spring of 2015, this black tea appears in black and golden slim strands. It brews bright orange liquor with prominent rose, honey and malty fragrances, accompanied by long-lasting sweet aftertaste.

Black tea produced in Yunnan is more commonly referred as Dianhong, which means “Yunnan red” in Chinese. The production starts with fresh leaves from ancient tea tree, which then are rolled, fermented, dried and sieved into various grades. Like other black teas, Dianhong is fully fermented, and is considered one of the premium black teas in China.

What distinguishes this black tea from the others is the type of tea tree from which it is produced. Tengtiao, meaning cane or rattan, is the name of a type of tea trees with very distinct slender and long branches. These 200 to 300 year-old trees can only be found in the ancient tea gardens around the town of Mengku, located inShuangjiang county of Yunnan province in China. Since the Qing dynasty, these trees have been shaped using a special technique that trims off all the excessive sub-branches and bigger leaves, leaving only two fresh tea buds per branch for harvesting. The production is very low. Nonetheless this technique produces very neat and delicate buds, and concentrates all the tea nutrients within the two tea buds in every branch, creating fragrance unseen in most tea.