€120,00 EUR
This tea was made in Nanzuo village, Jingmai Mountain. It was dried under the sun, not with hot air as is the case for most black teas. In Yunnan, we call such tea Shai Hong, while the teas dried with hot air are called Dian Hong.
It comes in a 1kg air-tight pouch.
Sun-drying gives a very different profile to the black tea. You don't get the typical chocolatey fragrance, because the low temperature of the sun doesn't trigger maillard reactions on the leaves. The tea feels more punchy than a classic Yunnan black, it has a bit of a Pu-erh tea mouthfeel, more penetrative to the gums. You'll also get a light sourness and plenty of lingering sweetness.
This kind of tea is a good bridge between classic black and Pu-erh tea. You don't get as obvious a fragrance as in air-dried black tea, but it's still not as punchy as Pu-erh tea.
This kind of tea can age well, you can keep it for up to five years. Its aroma will refine as it ages.
Black tea is always a trade-off between bitterness, sweetness and sourness. Where your tea lands in this triangle is mostly determined by the oxidation parameters.
Jingmai is a famous mountain located close to Myanmar in South-Western Yunnan. We (William and Yubai) have been operating a tea factory in Yubai's family home since 2011.
We occasionally make black tea ourselves, we sell it retail on our main website (www.farmerleaf.com), but for the b2b market, we'd rather rely on professionals for the job. We like to experiment with black tea, but to get a consistent result, you need a lot of practice, making black tea a couple of times a year won't cut it.
This is why we work with Nan You Guo in Nanzuo village. He has a small tea factory, but he makes a lot of black tea every year, when the weather allows it (sun-dried black obviously requires clear weather!).
Making good sun-dried black tea requires flexibility. We label this one as summer tea but is was made from May to July 2024, using windows of clear weather. Large factories are reluctant on producing sun-dried tea because of that reason, it require a lot of flexibility and also a lot of greenhouse space for drying.
