2011 Yunnan Sourcing "Autumn Gua Feng Zhai" Raw Pu-erh Tea of Yi Wu

This is the third time Yunnan Sourcing has produced tea from the village of Gua Feng Zhai. We selected late Autumn 2011 wild arbor material from the village of "Gua Feng Zhai" (刮风寨), one of the most remote villages in the area, it is just a few kilometres from the Laos-Yunnan border. The road to Gua Feng Zhai is just a dirt track that is only accessible by motorcycle if it's raining.  The tea from Gua Feng Zhai is typically picked and processed by the Yao Minority people who live there.  This special environment and unique processing lends the tea a special flavor that is unique among Yi Wu area teas.  

When brewing the tea you will notice the tea soup is a bright yellow-gold and clear, the aroma is penetrating and the tea is full in the mouth. The flavor is textured and thick with some floral essences.  This is one of the more pungent and intense of the Yi Wu area teas. The brewed leaves are thick and stout attesting to their wild arbor origin.

This tea was compressed in a small tea factory in Yi Wu where very large 40 kilogram stone presses were used.  This is why this cake is wider (in diameter) than our other stone pressed cakes that were pressed with smaller 25kg stone presses.  Low temperature “baking” was used to dry these cakes after the compression process thus preserving their integrity!  In total just 80 kilograms of this tea has been produced.

Important note:  All 5 of the teas from our Autumn Yi Wu series have been hand-stamped with the name of the village in Chinese at the tea factory.  However, the person responsible for stamping the wrappers (in most cases) did not use enough ink.  Before sending to you we will add an additional stamp with the letters "G F Z" just below the chinese stamp on the front of the cake to help you identify the cakes.  If you order a whole tong, there will be no added "G F Z" stamp on the cakes as adding it would require us to break open the bamboo leaf tong.

Net Weight:  250 grams per cake 
Compression date:  October 15th 2011
Harvest time:  October 2011
Harvest Area:  Gua Feng Zhai, Yi Wu mountain range, Meng La county of Xi Shuang Banna