Blog
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Another great sheng pu from Vietnam. Viet Sun Sơn La 2023
When you drink teas like those of Sơn La you are pervaded by a sense of satisfaction and touched by a contemplative streak, they are acrobatic teas capable of pushing themselves to the limit with a strong personality while maintaining balance and harmony, like a painting in which all the lines of force resolve into…
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A cup that smells like an orchard next to a creek. TTdC Sanmai 2013 sheng pu from hundred-year-old trees
The sheng pu of Thès Terre de Ciel is the reflection of an extraordinary terroir such as that of Sanmai, a village that follows the limelight of Mengsong teas, preserving its pure fruity appearance and sugary touch and at the same time sheltered from oracular exaltation and censorship which brought many teas from these areas at…
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Sanmai, the village in Mengsong where time seems to have stopped
Sanmai has gained more and more attention from pu’er enthusiasts in recent years, following the growing interest in the forests of Naka and the Mengsong area. It is surrounded by some of the most famous mountains in Menghai county, about an hour north of Banpo zhai in the Nannuo area, and an hour and a…
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The forest of Hoàng Su Phì and reconciliation with the truth. Soliloquy with Viet Sun black tea from ancient trees
The sound of the horn in the Dao rituals dictates the rhythm of a place that seems alive in the eternal instant of a perpetual past, the thunders are rhythmic like the steps of the Jade Emperor on his journey to earth. The people do their utmost in the preparation of the traditional ceremony in…
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A forest out of this world, shaped by a Caravaggesque hand. This is Paliang
Passing the muddy paths close to Bulang, with those mountains behind you that seem to have been born from the virtuosity of a Caravaggesque hand, shaped by tectonic inclemency, by geological tension, the sun shines burning over the tropical karst sinkholes, a place where nature and men weave millenary relationships, meeting in the most inaccessible…
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A visceral bond with time that has never been broken and a history that has never been betrayed. Journey to Lùng Vài through this Viet Sun 2022 sheng pu’erh
The rain poured down, the people in the highland villages returned home after working in the fields all day, the light fades as people’s voices approach, dispersing the fatigue of the harvest in their song. The forests stand between the terraced fields like polychromatic marvels, the mountain farmers appear like artists when their work creates…
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An emotional tea along Xiangling Highway. Mr Quen Cun An and his early 2000’s Manzhuan pu’er
Along the Xianglun Highway, the entrances to the forest alternate with those of the taidicha, a single main road connects the village of Manzhuang to that of Manlin. The primeval essence of the tropical forest can be seen from the few patches of bare earth left; the age, mineralogy and extensive leaching of acrisol, which…
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As long as the root is still there, everything is still there. A few words about Manzhuan
“只要根还在，一切都还在”Before the advent of a group of Taiwanese tea explorers in 1994, Manzhuan was a heavily rural area, dominated by vegetation surrounding classical Han architecture. Residents of Manzhuang, Manlin and Manqian were still recovering from the war that decimated many families, the losses due to the famine and class sacrifices of the Maoist era, especially…
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A tea that is a symbol of redemption, of radical change and self-determination. Viet Sun Lùng Vài pressed white tea 2022
A long time has passed, from Chinese cultural domination, from French colonization, from the 30 years of struggle for independence, the time necessary for the rain to give respite to the memory from the pain of the loss. But tea in Vietnam resisted everything as an observer of events, as a symbol of the zeitgeist,…
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The Shangkang festival, the reconciliation of civilization, a nostalgic tea. Thoughts through a 2021 Wengji sheng pu from Moychay
People gathered at the Shankang festival, their predecessors were honored, the offerings placed at the foot of a distant past in which every year the memory revived. It was an occasion to dance, to be involved in a moment when time seemed to stop, saturated with a sense that was difficult to translate into words,…
Wild Harvested 