Dear tea lovers and friends,
The world is experiencing an unexpected time, as bitter as the first sip of our wild shengpu leaves, with a sweet aftertaste that is late in coming. Many of us have been living in isolation, with our own stocks of tea and many hopes and dreams about the season to come.
In a world that seems frozen in time, nature didn’t stop its course: the Earth thrives and keeps nourishing our trees, and we are about to see dozens, then hundreds and thousands of bright green spots emerging in the under-forest, that are the thousands of fresh gems sprouting on our tea trees.
Right now, in these troubled times, tea is not only a comforting beverage. It is, more than anything, our hope and our strenghth. So let’s focus on tea, and on what we can expect from our Nannuo and Pasha mountain tea trees.
We expect to pick up the first younger leaves in Nannuo forest in about a week from now, while for the ancient trees in Pasha/Lunan we probably have to wait two or three weeks more.
Our tea usually comes a bit later than other producers. Our tea trees grow in an high altitude forest, to which the advanced age – up to 500 years – of some of them is added, so that the life cycle of the new buds is particularly slow. However, they grow tall and strong, their leaves rich in nourishment, without any chemical fertilizer.
The spring harvest to come is the most precious one, because it comes after six months of dry season: during this time the trees have grown slowly, nourishing their leaves with a higher mineral content that makes for the most intense taste, and the best chances to age your tea.
All of you that tasted our 2019 teas, compared to the other “normal” years probably noticed the remarkable complexity and clarity of their fragrances, since the 2019 was a dry year with a scarce growth, that concentrated the aromas in few leaves.
The year 2020 is going to be even drier: we saw a light rain in Nannuo a few days ago, and none at all in the last few weeks in Pasha/Lunan. This fact makes us pretty sure about the scarce quantity, but at least we can have some great expectations about the quality of the finished teas.
In China travelling between one city and the other, and of course between different provinces, is currently forbidden, and it will probably remain so until late May or June.
This means that we won’t receive the usual visits of our buyers, no merchants but the local ones will be traveling the mountains, and our leaves will have to travel by themselves all over the world.
We are used to publish the daily life of our harvest by photos and words. We love doing it, it is a way of having all of you tea lovers with us. This year it won’t be the same since our photographer is blocked out of Yunnan, but our guys in the mountain will try to keep your spirits - and the quality of the pictures - high and let us all enjoy this fantastic time.
Finally, we will be out soon with a pre-order for our Eastern Leaves teas, and you can write to us anytime for further information and to pre-order your tea at a discounted rate.
We’ll be waiting together to savour the sweet aftertaste of a new beginning.
