Gorgeous Maocha to perfectly celebrate the vivacity and character of fresh-picked, ancient tree PuErh. Toffee and creams play alongside sweet spices, aromatic herbs and tropical fruits.
Our yearly homage to the way PuErh is drunk by the farmers continues. We started in 2015 and every year we mark the beginning of Summer with a unique offering to taste the verve of ancient tree Maocha . Young Gushu 2024 is here and this year is such a winning batch.
I had never heard of Ganlongtan village (had you?). It certainly is not a famous place for PuErh but after tasting this tea it will forever be etched in my memory as a place to remember.
North of Lincang and super high up (around 2800m) - this tea exhibits the characteristics of the cooler climates and slower growing teas which sprout up in the clouds - bright petrichor, minerals and misty aromatics combined with sweet herbs.
But then we add the rich potency of ancient trees (estimated at 200 years old) and the blend is very special. Toffee, custards and syrup bring warm sweetness to the mix, followed by the fruity twang of guava and cherimoya. There is also a 'wildness' to the taste with mountain flowers, forest honey and spicy notes of nutmeg and allspice.
The finish is also unique - brothy and oily and slowly shifting to a sweet herbal brightness and a vaporous lemon oil hui gan.
Young Gushu 2024 is a tea of splendour which stands apart from previous offerings with its hybrid quality - combining the tropical and wild with the cool and cloudy. I have no idea how it will age but I reckon it could be a crazy evolution so I recommend grabbing a pouch for future years.
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What is the Young Gushu series? It's a homage to the way that farmers drink their PuErh in Yunnan - a loose leaf assamica green tea fresh from sun-drying and straight into the gaiwan. No fuss, no pressing into cakes, no fancy artwork, no ageing. We want you to experience this back-to-basics way of enjoying the finest PuErh. Another advantage is that you get to sip on immaculate PuErh without splurging money on a cake.
Why? Because there is something magical about drinking fresh and loose PuErh. Not only does it bring us back to the perfect simplicity of such a hyped tea type but, if you find the right tea, can give you a very different experience - capturing the verve and vitality of Springtime in Yunnan and the directness of the terroir since the leaf is simply dried under the sun with no further processing.
The problem is that finding candidates for the Young Gushu series is very challenging. We want ancient tea material which has richness, complexity and body. A tea which would be worthy of making into an expensive tea cake and ageing for years. Yet, we also need that tea to have the Springtime lightness and an easy sipping nature which is often hard to come by with fresh assamica maocha (they are often too astringent and 'green' which is reduced with cake-pressing and ageing).
While Young Gushu teas are chosen for drinking fresh, they will continue to age beautifully - they will certainly age differently to cake-pressed teas but in our experience they perform fabulously over the years.
