2019 Yunnan Sourcing "Buddy" Ripe Pu-erh Tea Cake

"Buddy" celebrates the spirit of companionship that dogs and humans share.  Buddy is also a young stray dog that we fostered for a couple of months during the summer of 2018.

This ripe pu-erh tea cake is made from 2015 harvested and wet piled tea from the Da Hu Sai area of Mengku.  The tea was dry aged in Kunming until it was pressed in June of 2019!  The tea is smooth with a natural sweetness and thick malty taste!

Furthermore, $5 for every cake sold will be donated to "Central Texas Ruffugees" to support their efforts in rescuing and rehoming dogs. With 500 cakes in total, we will generate a donation of $2500!  When I mentioned this to the director of CTR she said: 

"$2500 will make a huge difference. We can transport 10 dogs for that amount. 10 dogs like Ana, who was in a small rural rescue/shelter for a year. We sent her to WA and she was adopted within days of arrival."

Scroll to down to read "Buddy's Story" and learn more about the great work that "Central Texas Ruffugees" does!

Buddy's Story:

"Buddy," as he came to be known, was a blue heeler / pit mix that showed up one morning on our property.  We live down a quiet dead end road which has become a notorious dumping ground for unwanted dogs.

We took Buddy to the vet and scanned him for a microchip but he had none.  He did have a lot of fleas and even a couple of ticks.  Luckily, he was heart-worm negative!   We canvassed the neighborhood and posted on FB groups searching for an owner, but given his situation, being a young male (about 10 months) dog that was not neutered, we were told again and again that most likely he was dumped.  We could not take him to the shelter as it was not a no-kill shelter, and the other no-kill shelters (besides also being over capacity) would not take him without him being neutered.  We did eventually make contact with "Central Texas Ruffugees" who told us that, if we could have him neutered and hold onto him for 5 weeks, then they would drive him with a bunch of other dogs to Washington state where he'd be adopted very quickly by vetted owners.

At first, it was a little rough as he was still recovering from a flea infestation and had to sleep on the porch.  He wanted inside constantly and he was so hungry (despite eating a lot) that he even challenged Lucy for food during her mealtime (a bold undertaking)!  Lucy, for all her fangs and snarls at mealtime, actually started to like Buddy (and Buddy learned to stay away from Lucy during mealtime).  They started to play a lot and it seemed like Lucy had regressed to puppyhood.  We were actually a little jealous because Lucy paid us so little attention when Buddy was around.  Buddy's skin healed from all the fleas and scratching, as did his incision from the neutering.  His fur developed a nice sheen, and he was now inside when he wanted to be, often sleeping next to Lucy.

We really considered keeping Buddy, but with our constant back and forth traveling between Yunnan and Texas and having to tag-team parent Lucy or place her with friends or relatives, we decided that we'd still give up Buddy to Central Texas Ruffugees.  When the day came to drop him off at their place in Austin it was rough on all of us.  Buddy was smart and well-behaved, charming and handsome, and he'd won our hearts.  We drove back home teary-eyed but also happy to know that Buddy would be OK.

A few days later we heard from Central Texas Ruffugees that they'd arrived in Vancouver, WA (after 28 hours of driving) and that Buddy was adopted the same day by a young couple who lived on a 1 acre plot outside of town!   Yay Buddy!

Central Texas Ruffugees gathers dogs from small, rural shelters and areas, that have little hope of making it out alive. CTR works with local veterinarians to get the dogs up-to-date and healthy, and then makes long haul drive (24-30 hours) to rescues who open their hearts and kennels to them.

To learn more about what they do, click here to visit their website or make donations here.

You may also peruse the Central Texas Ruffugees Facebook page here!

You can see Buddy briefly here in one of our videos!

August 29th 2020 Update! - We've sold 87 cakes!  (We raised $435 so far)

Back to some pertinent details about the tea cake!

Net Weight:  200 grams per cake (5 cakes per bamboo leaf tong)
Harvest time:  Spring 2016
Harvest Area:  Mengku County, Lincang Prefecture
Total Production amount:  100 kilograms (500 cakes)
Wrapper Design by Yuri Kobylyansky

This tea has been tested in a certified laboratory for 191 pesticides, and is within the EU MRL limits set for those 191 pesticide residues. For a full list of the 191 pesticides we tested for and more information about MRL testing and the EU Food and Safety commission click on this link.