Big Snow Mountain area of Mengku in Lincang is a high alttude area that's home to many tea gardens. This lovely black tea was processed with care from first flush of spring assamica tea leaves picked from 30 to 40 year old plantation bushes growing naturally at an altitude of 1800 meters. The tea brews up a deep red tea soup, with a lovely floral front-end, and smooth thick sweet after-taste. Thick and viscous tea, complex and interesting, while lasting many infusions makes this a worthwhile newcomer to our offering here at Yunnan Sourcing! These Dragon Balls were made by my mother- in-law and father-in-law. They make them in their spare time. They use little pieces of cotton to compress them instead of saran wrap. Saran wrap compression is the most common method because it's faster, but it causes off gassing into the tea since the tea must be steamed to soften and is very hot. We use cotton, which is safe. Dragon balls are great because they are perfect single brewing servings, and because the leaves fare much better during transport and storage compared to loose leaf form, which tend to break apart causing the brewed tea to be overly astringent and/or bitter and detracts from overall look of the brewed leaves! 50% of the profits from the sales of these Dragon Balls will go directly to my father/mother-in-law. We will give them the money as a red packet during Chinese New Year, since they won't accept money directly from my wife or I. Most likely they will put most of it in the bank for their retirement! Each Dragon Ball is roughly 8 grams of tea (+/- 0.5 grams)
