Menghai Ripened Pu-erh Cake Tea – Year of Snake

This snake-year commemorative ripe cake was made from raw materials from 2013 (which is also the Year of the Snake in the Chinese lunar calendar). After over a decade of aging, it has reached its optimal drinking period. The dry tea has a strong woody aroma; the tea liquid is clear and reddish-bright, with a mellow taste, sweet and moist, carrying a sticky rice fragrance and a light mushroom aroma. It is a tea cake that is both commemorative and offers great value for money.

	Cup Method		Chinese Gongfu Method
	Teacup: 12oz / 355ml		Gaiwan: 3.8oz / 110ml
	212℉ / 100℃		212℉ / 100℃
	5g Tea		10g Tea
	Brewing time: 5 - 8 mins		14 steeps: rinse, 10s, 10s, 10s, 10s, 10s, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s, 100s, 150s, 180s
			Rinse time is 5 seconds

Man Xin Long stockaded village is located in Bulang Shan entirely surrounded by forests and at an elevation of 1800 meters. The Bulang nationality here migrated over two hundred years ago, and planted the original tea trees along the nearby 150 mu of hillsides during that time.

In the tea grove, tea farmers are picking tea leaves on the high tea tree.

Bulang Mountain sits in Menghai County of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, and is a famous area of pu-erh production. This mountain houses the largest concentration of ancient tea trees within a 100,000-hectare area.

The mountain rolls and stretches across Menghai, with deep valleys cutting through hills that can reach up to 1216 meters on average, with the highest point, Sanduo Peak, rising almost 2100m above sea level. Bulang Mountain experiences a subtropical monsoon climate, with abundant sunlight and rainfall of about 1374mm per year, and the average temperature between 18 and 21℃. There is little risk of frost here, and the season for it is also short; during the spring and winter a heavy fog blankets the mountain, while the summer and autumn months are often overcast and rainy.

Native to Menghai County in Xishuangbanna, the Menghai large-leaf tea species was rated as the most improved national variety in 1984. It grows up to 7m tall in the wild with bold green leaves noticeably larger than more common varieties, and the buds of this species are yellowish-green and coated in fuzz. The leaves are high in phytochemicals, with one bud and two leaves containing 2.3% amino acids, 32.8% polyphenolic compounds, 4.1% caffeine, and 18.2% catechinic acid. Because of this, pu-erh tea made from this species is high in quality, rich yet soft in taste, and maintains a full-bodied essence.

Pu-erh is one of the oldest types of tea in China with a history stretching back over 1700 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 originally the early trading center for this tea. In early history pu-erh was used as a bartering currency in southwest China, with the famed Cha Ma Gu Dao, the Tea Horse Road, being built for the purpose of transporting this tea through the Himalayas to other countries and areas in Tibet.