Harvest time: 13/04/2020
Origin: Ma Tai, Yunnan, China
Garden height: 1600m
Cultivar: Old Tree Yunnan Big Leaf Tea

Matai is a small village located in Lincang, near the Lan Cang River, which separates the two Yunnan regions of Pu Er and Lincang. Here it is very peaceful, isolated and quiet, unrecognized in a place in the world of tea, but in the eyes of true tea masters, this is a treasure garden. There are many tea gardens in China, but only in three places, tea gardens are very rocky. These are Wuyi from Fujian, Feng Huang Shan from Chaozhou and Matai from Yunnan.

The old Matai Tea Garden was built about two hundred years ago. The altitude of the garden is 1650 m. At night, the humid air of the Lancang River rises to the tea bushes, creating cloud and fog, and during the day, the southern part of the garden is exposed to the sun. Being on a high mountain, even in the evening, the sun still covers the tea garden. During the day, the temperature is high and at night it is low. The garden abounds in rocks that enrich the tea tree with iron and other minerals. The age of the tree is about 100-200 years. Old trees grow naturally without pesticides and chemical fertilizers. The rockeries surround the trees with rich minerals and give the tea a deep flavor.

The taste of Matai tea is very clean and strong, and most importantly, the strong taste very quickly turns into a sweet, pleasant and long-lasting taste.
The tea is very good for storage due to its excellent texture and unique quality. Also, the rarity of this tea will add value to it during storage.

Sheng Pu-erh tea comes from green tea, from which it differs only in two things. One is that the roasting temperature (Sha Qing) of sheng pu-erh is slightly lower than that of green tea, and the other is that sheng pu-erh is dried in sunlight unlike green tea.

Sheng pu-erh is actually very simple to process. On the other hand, a unique rule is that the simpler the processing, the more difficult it is to produce good tea. Without complicated processing, the quality of the raw material is most reflected in the quality of the tea. That’s why in Yunnan there are so many famous mountains of tea and old tea trees for sheng pu-erh. According to this, we can understand why the price of sheng pu-erh tea is generally higher than shu (brewed/ripe) pu-erh despite the fact that the processing of brewed tea is much more complex and expensive.

With Sheng Pu-erh tea, you are actually expected to enjoy the natural wild taste of the tea plant, unlike ripe pu-erh and most old teas, where the art of processing is also shown.

Preparation – kettle:
• 5 g tea
• 200 ml of water
• temp. 85-90°C
• 4-5 pour-overs: 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min, 2.5 min, 3 min

Preparation – gaiwan:
• 7-8 g of tea
• 110 ml of water
• temp. 85-90°C
• Spillovers 10: 20s, 25s, 30s, 35s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s, 120s, 150s