Wild Harvested

Tag: Giàng Pằng

  • Viet Sun Giàng Pằng 1 Big Tree sheng pu’er spring 2024

    Viet Sun Giàng Pằng 1 Big Tree sheng pu’er spring 2024

    Giàng Pằng, it was the discovery of this village and its history, its culture and the ancestral nature of its landscapes that began what would be the focus of my attention for the last two years.

    If we were in other parts of the world people would be there taking photos, absorbed, writing farewell poems about the transience of some exotic flower and the ephemeral duration of youth, but here there are only people, real people bent over by fatigue, with their colorful bandanas, clinging to their tenacity and resilience.

    The streets are harsh, steep, the cinnamon bark is exposed to the sun, the tea is drying on bamboo mats, even the chickens think of the ephemerality of youth perched on wooden beams.

    Here where not even the setting sun seems to find rest, the old tea trees appear like lignified bodies in an archaic dance, in a land that loves no middle ground. The clouds and rains rage in a despotic manner while the fog calms down giving a conciliatory impression, each element is in a disorderly way part of an atavistic work, a fragment of the dawn of the ages.

    An anti-geometric vision where modernity barely finds space, where the succession of mountains in the distance creates its own rhythm in a primordial and perpetual order.

    This is where VN tea becomes great and it can only be like this, because like every other mountain where the gods have found refuge, great things do not happen on slopes that do not bring suffering.

    This Viet Sun teacomes from a batch processed by Steve, from a single big tree, in the spring of 2024, and is the juxtaposition between verticality and softness, between flesh, bone and soul.

    The leaves are reminiscent of wild sour green plums, dehydrated longan with a slightly smoky streak, the aromas then focus on the undergrowth, apple wood and then give way to plum, aromatic herbs and light leathery nuances.


    The sip is sartorially silky, measuredly round, with light bitterness and light astringency that ends with an excellent huigan. The strong qi accompanies an aromatic playground that goes from green melon to persimmons, in a continuous evolution infusion after infusion until it fades into accords of plum jam and alpine flowers bouquet.

  • A few words about Giàng Pằng, the village above the clouds, brewing a reviving 2023 spring sheng pu’er

    A few words about Giàng Pằng, the village above the clouds, brewing a reviving 2023 spring sheng pu’er

    You could hear the army advancing among the ancient tea trees, the march on the wet ground through those wooden body embraced by moss interrupted the solemn silence, the metallic noises of the pots and pans being brought along and that of the rifle shells dictated the rhythm of a macabre dance.
    The H’Mông children looked at the soldiers, seeing every last remnant of soul in their eyes, acts of tenderness could still be observed on those difficult paths where the yellow grass interrupted the recurring reddish texture of the soaked clay, and so on for kilometers up to Phình Hồ accompanied by the abiding humidity that penetrated the bones and the scent of cinnamon trees mixed with that of the grease of damp weapons, and finally to Giàng Pằng.

    This must be what Tô Hoài saw on his travels to Sùng Đô, Giàng Pằng, a village above the clouds whose houses at night, lit by fire, appeared to him like the fervent eyes of a young revolutionary woman, and when the fog vanished was like lifting the thin veil that covered her countenance.

    Surrounded around the fire, the crackling of the bonfires reverberates on the branches above, producing a melody consecrating images and sounds of another world; the gaze turned to the forest of those who produce tea here seems persuaded by the same lifeblood of the camellia, of those who, despite the suffering and pain of loss, manage to live the “here and now” of their being without anything else, those who manage, despite it all, to consist in the last act of present.

    Only in recent years the government tried to enhance this forest and the resilience and tenacity of its inhabitants, an attempt to return a product that is a reflection of the extraordinary uniqueness of its primordial topography and of its territory, rich in ancient tea trees and with an unimaginable potential.

    The leaves of this 2023 spring sheng pu’er are harvested in Giàng Pằng, Yên Bái province, at 1400 m altitude. It is a mountain tea whose aromas unfold creating an ascension itinerary to the summit, the wet leaves begin with notes of wild flowers and medlars, enveloped in the scents of a pot in which peach jam is cooking. The interesting complexity develops in a crescendo of fermentative notes and macerated plum, tomato sauce and a bouquet of aromatic herbs accompanied by typical bread-making scents.
    The sip has a medium thickness, is vibrant, fresh and surprisingly sweet, with low bitterness and astringency, adorned with a pleasant floral component and supported by a good huigan and a slight tang of wild berries.