The highly sought after sequel to Find Your Sunshine - this blend of Ripe PuErh and aged Xhinhui Chen Pi has a rich and rounded taste and a cleansing, settling body sensation with a bright mental clarity. An absolute winner! THIS IS THE 2ND PRESSING - totally free of the mold issue that we showed everyone in this video:
Tea and Chen Pi is an ancient blend. Over a thousand years before tea was brewed in the Paocha (loose-leaf steeping) style, tea was first used as a food ingredient in soups and porridges. There are ancient recipes showing that the much revered Chen Pi was one of the most common ingredients to blend in the tea soup.
ABOUT THE PUERH
Too many Chen Pi and PuErh blends use mediocre quality tea. We want our 'Find Your Sunshine' series to be different by using pinnacle teas which we would happily release as a pure tea.
We took a while searching for the Ripe PuErh for this sequel. I wanted the tea to differ from 'Find Your Sunshine 1' by choosing a tea which had a more rounded and creamy taste to offset the bright citrus notes of the Chen Pi. Eventually, we came across this old -arbor Mengku Ripe PuErh which has a delightful white chocolate start moving to a cocoa finish - from light to deep in the mouth which both pair perfectly with the mandarin aromatics.
ABOUT CHEN PI
Chen Pi (mandarin peel) is a valued ingredient and Chinese Medicinal herb used in cooking and medicine. Its flavour and medicinal effects increase as it ages and it can become very expensive, selling for between $1-5 per gram for Chen Pi aged over 30 years.
The ageing of Chen Pi concentrates and deepens its aroma and effects while calming the very transient volatiles and settling the flavour. Aged Chen Pi is used in Chinese Medicine to move Qi downwards and is often prescribed to stop bloating, belching, nausea, stomach pain and vomiting.
Chen Pi also dispels dampness making it a common ingredient to relieve chesty, heavy coughs, reduce phlegm and general feelings of being congested in your respiration. Chen Pi should not be taken for dry coughs.
The character of aged Chen Pi is gently warming while still providing a comfortable, cooling citrus sensation in the mouth. It is very settling and grounding.
The most famous area for producing the best Chen Pi is Xinhui in Guangdong.
The Chen Pi used in this tea blend is from 2014 making it nicely aged (and it will continue to age with the PuErh tea) and it has been sourced from Xinhui. It is blended at about 20-25% in proportion to the tea.
There are many blends of tea with young Chen Pi - they can be bright and delicious but do not have the same effects so we had to find some good aged peels.
ABOUT THE BLEND
We all know that Ripe PuErh (Shu) is a fabulous digestif to settle the stomach but when you add Chen Pi, these settling effects take on a whole new level of potency. This is a very grounding and settling tea in the body with a very clear and bright mind making it suitable for all times of day and for solo or social sessions.
We wanted this tea to help everyone to settle in the present moment with clarity and lightness no matter what your day is like and to 'Find Your Sunshine'.
