A totally unique tea type that (as far as we know) has never been made before - a Mi Lan Dan Dong Oolong Heicha barrel fermented in Kombucha and roasted to finish. SPECIAL LAUNCH PRICE OF £99 - in 2023 the price will increase to £115.
The Atlas Tapestry is the culmination of over 2 years of planning and work by multiple producers in multiple provinces. It is the finale of our Attention Treasury game and includes the artwork created by the community. The cake comes in a gift box, bag and a card from the Attention Treasury.
You can read the full story below but let's just say that this tea has been a mad experiment and I am so happy with the results. Deep, rich and roasty breadiness blend with antique woods and leathers sprinkled with elevating resin and candied fruits, all topped off with an enduring orange and pine brightness.
The Atlas Tapestry shifts and swivels throughout the session, unveiling the different characters of this hybrid beauty.
Be warned that this is a powerful tea in taste and effects! It is a dazzling tea made for those extra-special sessions. We only have 230 cakes available.
THE STORY
This tea began in my imagination in 2020 with the release of B.A.D. - a Yunnan Black which had been fermented (unintentionally) to make a unique Black tea & Heicha hybrid tea.
This tea prompted us to experiment with different fermentation styles and led to the much-loved release of Playground Rendez-Vous - a ripe PuErh tea fermented in bamboo barrels with Black Tea Kombucha. It was my favourite tea of 2021.
Also in 2020, we were experimenting with roasting Heicha with the releases of Bulang Brittle and Nug Bake. I loved the results and wondered if we could put this all together.
But I also wanted to play with fermenting other tea types and top of the list was one of my most beloved teas - Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong. I wanted to know how the intensely aromatic Oolong would react to the fermentation process and how this could be shaped with roasting after fermentation.
So in Autumn 2021 we began searching for a Mi Lan Dan Cong. We had to taste unroasted teas because I did not want a fully roasted tea to be fermented - instead our plan was to finish the roast after fermentation. Eventually, we found a beautiful Wudong Mi Lan Dan Cong and we took the expensive risk of buying 70kg for this experimental tea. We asked for the producers to give the tea an initial roast to lock in the aromatics and settle the tea before fermentation.
We then had to find a way to ship that tea to Yunnan.
Yunnan is such a revered tea province with so much potential fakery that shipping tea into Yunnan is restricted for fear that poor quality tea will be imported and then re-exported as Yunnan tea. But, we had some friends who managed to truck the tea over to Yunnan and bring it to the experimental fermentation factory who had made our Playground Rendez-Vous PuErh.
The team then loaded the Oolong into a large bamboo barrel and added Black Tea Kombucha. They left the tea to ferment for nearly 2 months and then dried and aired the tea for about 20 days. The picture below shows the entire batch after fermentation.
Eventually the tea was pressed into cakes - by this point, the tea had lost about 25% of its weight due to fermentation and breakages and we only had 260 cakes! We then allowed the cakes to further dry and rest in Menghai for about 6 months.
Finally, the cakes were shipped to London and we eagerly tasted it in preparation for roasting - the tea was totally unique and had retained that Dan Cong fruitiness while being deep and dark and spicy.
I then began test- roasting the cakes in our tea oven. We have had experience roasting Ripe Tea before but nothing like this one and there were so many parameters to play with - temperature, time, number of roasts, resting periods and brewing styles. To be honest, I went a bit crazy trying to work it all out and having the extra stress of knowing that for every experiment we were just losing cakes to sell!
After well over 5 months of experimentation, I teased out the perfect roast for my tastes. I won't give away the parameters but I will say that these cakes are roasted low and slow at different temperature gradients with periods of resting. It has been a labour of love that has taught me so much about the skills of a roaster. PLEASE NOTE: The original cakes were pressed as 200g but there is natural reduction in weight due to roasting.so the actual weight of the cakes will be slightly lower.
Next up we had to come up with the artwork and name of this cake and I wanted the community to have their own input into this mad experimental tea. I began devising the Attention Treasury game in early 2021 and I worked on the ideas of ART and attention with the plan to create a Tapestry of pixels for the community to make their own artwork. I love the results and I thank everyone for being involved in the creation.
And so, after over 2 years of planning and experimentation, we finally have the Atlas Tapestry. It is a tea type which has never been made before and has involved the work of so many people. I am so honoured to release it for you.
BREWING TIPS
Since this tea is made with Dan Cong Oolong starting material, it retains that variety's reactivity to brewing parameters. If you brew this tea like any other Heicha/Ripe PuErh then it likely that the tea will be too punchy for most tastes (except those hardcore tasters). I recommend brewing the first 5 infusions at 90c/195F and then using boiling water for the rest of your session. As always, play around and find your own style.
