10-Year Aged Raw Pu-erh Brick Tea 2005

There is a saying that raw pu-erh tea needs to be store for at least 10 years in order to develop its true taste - but let’s put that aside. This tea has been stored in the “干仓” (Pinyin: gancang, which refers to warehouses that keep a dry internal environment year-round, for the sole purpose of aging pu-erh) for ten years, so that its taste and aroma has been greatly enhanced.

The fresh, herbaceous plant aromas of the newly harvested tea morph into a faint woody scent after ten-year storage. Much like its scent when dry, the taste of this tea is delightfully mild; once you take a sip of it you will immediately experience the thirst-quenching feeling beneath your tongue, accompanied by a long-lasting fragrance.

	Cup Method		Chinese Gongfu Method
	Teacup: 12oz / 355ml		Gaiwan: 3.8oz / 110ml
	212℉ / 100℃		212℉ / 100℃
	5g Tea		8g Tea
	Brewing time: 3 - 5 mins		12 steeps: rinse, 25s, 20s, 20s, 30s, 30s, 50s, 60s, 80s, 100s, 130s, 150s, 180s

The majority of trees growing in the Lida and Pinghe tea gardens belong to the Fengqing large-leaf variety, all an average of about a hundred years old. The tea garden is located in the high mountains in the major tea-producing area of Fengqing County. The fresh leaves from this area are ideal for making Yunnan pu-erh or dian hong black tea, since they are high in phytochemicals - which mean that the finished teas retain high amounts of proteins, amino acids, alkaloids, and polyphenols.

This pu-erh tea comes from the representative area for pu-erh production in Fengqing, located south of Dianxi Longitudinal Valley. Fengqing is a country in the northwest of Lincang, one of the four famous pu-erh production areas (along with Xishuangbanna, Pu’er, and Baoshan), and is one of the original birthplaces of tea in the world. It is also famous for being the hometown of Yunnan black tea. Fengqing has a long history of planting, producing, and drinking tea, and contains a beautiful throng of mountains webbed with rivers.

This pu-erh tea is made from the Fengqing large-leaf species, which itself is a type of Yunnan large-leaf species. This tree propagates sexually and is an arbor super-large leaf variety, which means it can reach over six meters tall. In 1984 the Fengqing large-leaf species was certified by the Chinese government as a national grade. The species contains an abundance of tea polyphenols (30.2%) and catechins(13.4%), as well as an amount of amino acids (2.9%) and caffeine (3.2%).

Pu-erh tea is one of the oldest types of Chinese tea, with a history stretching back over 1,700 years to the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the tea was called Jing Cha. It is named after the town of Pu’er in Yunnan province, which was the earliest trading center for this tea. In its early history pu-erh was used as a bartering currency throughout southwest China, and there the famed Cha Ma Gu Dao - or Tea Horse Road - was built especially to transport this tea through the Himalayas to other countries and areas in Tibet.