Bad news keeps coming. The Qilai Mountain autumn tea that our store manager had high hopes for didn’t turn out well, so Qilai Mountain autumn tea will be missing from our collection this year too 😭😭
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We haven’t brought in any autumn tea from Lishan, Cuifeng, or Qilai Mountain this year. If I had to pick the most regrettable one, the manager would say it’s Qilai Mountain, because the tea plants grew exceptionally well this time—truly on par with spring tea in quality. In our experience, as long as it’s harvested on sunny days as scheduled, it’s practically a guarantee of great tea. We originally planned to increase our procurement of Qilai autumn tea, but a heavy downpour ruined those plans~
On August 3rd and 4th, Typhoon Khanun caused severe damage in Ren’ai Township. The Tunyuan Lushan and Duda tribes were hard-hit areas, with roadbeds completely washed away. Due to the interrupted roads, some tea farmers in the Tunyuan and Jingguan tribes couldn’t even harvest, leading to a drastic drop in autumn tea production. To make matters worse, there were only four or five days of sunshine afterward, while the rest brought heavy rain or just half a day of good weather, making harvesting conditions very poor. Tea made under these conditions is hardly going to be of high quality.
While the Qilai autumn tea didn’t perform well, the good news is that the tea gardens weren’t damaged, and the soil nutrients didn’t wash away significantly. It looks like we can still look forward to the winter tea!
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Much like Lishan, Meifeng, and Cuifeng, the autumn tea from Qilai Mountain is quite mild this year. The manager tasted batches up until August 22nd, as the autumn tea season was coming to an end, but the quality still hasn’t improved. Unless we catch a lucky break with the weather in the next few days, we won’t be purchasing any 2023 Qilai Mountain autumn tea~
#Personal evaluation does not mean all Tunyuan Qilai Mountain autumn tea is bad
