Spring 2024 Yingpan Shan Black

Spicy fragrance, decent mouthfeel for a black, warming. Spring 2024, 1 bud/ 2 leaves, medium oxidation, shaken, not stirred. The best price for value for Yunnan blacks. This is our basic Yunnan black, perfect to start the day or warm your body. You can enjoy it Gongfu style or in a mug. This tea delivers consistently. It's been a classic on our website, this year, we've added a short shaking step during withering, this allows to trigger early oxidation and allows the leaves to build a more complex aroma. You'll tell us if you can taste the difference! Yingpan Shan, a place for bargain teas Located 20km away from Pu'er City, Yingpan Shan produces a massive amount of tea, despite being totally unknown outside the county. This is a place where tea cannot be sold for its story, so the producers have to work even harder than in famous areas to extract the best from their leaves. The ones who produce an average tea can only compete on price, while more skilled artisans can obtain a small premium for making good tea. This is the case of Li Chao Yuan. We've worked with him for five years. He is our black tea expert in the region. He can really turn iron into gold. The material available in the area is decent, but nothing exceptional. Something worthy of note though, the farmers in the area have been prohibited from spraying pesticides since 2016. This is part of a large scale strategy in Yunnan to make the tea economy more environmentally friendly. Yingpan Shan is in a transition phase and should receive an organic certification in a couple of years. Li Chao Yuan can offer tea at such low cost because the fresh leaves are cheap and his factory is well optimised. He can make up to 30 tons a year in a very small space. He sells on the mass-market and makes higher end productions we like to buy. Sourced from better plantations and processed with all his expertise. Here is a brief presentation of Yingpan Shan and Mr Li's factory: