To our seasoned tea friends, the sixth winter tea of the year has arrived! Sourced from Ren’ai Township near Cingjing Farm, it was selected using our strict standards that surpass typical Lishan tea benchmarks. The key here comes down to two words: tender plucking. The tea soup is rich, viscous, and carries impressive weight on the palate.
How Was This Tea Harvested?
The tea garden sits at an altitude over 1,700 meters. In past years, harvesting took place in early October. However, with early October being warmer in recent years, the garden owner planned to postpone harvest by ten days until mid-October.
As it turned out, plans couldn’t keep up with the weather. September was unusually cool this year, and cold air arrived right on schedule in October. As high-altitude temperatures dropped, waiting any longer risked rapid lignification of the tea leaves. Unwilling to take that gamble, the grower impulsively advanced the harvest by two to three days. That last-minute call yielded this exceptional, tenderly plucked tea.
The trade-off is that an already small yield became even smaller. The upside is that the body and viscosity are truly stunning, making it the best-performing high-altitude winter tea we’ve tasted this year.
However, tenderly plucked teas do have one small quirk: if steeped too long—say, left stewing for around 10 minutes—a slight bitterness will emerge. If you’re a perfectionist who cannot tolerate even the smallest flaw, you might want to pass on this one.
Setting that minor bitterness aside, I’d rate this tea a 90 out of 100. Even after deducting points for that minor flaw, it still beats 90% of Lishan teas out there, and easily outperforms standard Lishan offerings. Factoring in the price, it is currently our best-value pick—even I think it’s an incredible bargain.
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