Green Peony

头采绿牡丹

Harvest
March 2021

Origin
Jinggu, Yunnan

The Green Peony is a stunning tea. Its leaves are some of the most beautiful we have seen and the tea itself is one of the most comforting and elegant teas we’ve tasted.

Everything about this tea is very special to us — the maker, the trees, the environment, and the processing. It is made by the highly respected Mr. Tang Wang in Jinggu, Yunnan. The Green Peony is made from leaves of the the Jinggu Big White varietal tea trees that Mr. Tang himself planted when he started his tiny organic tea farm 17 years ago. Mr. Tang is intensely passionate about tea made in the most natural way possible, and that means starting from the ground up: the soil, the tea trees, and the nutrients. Ever since he started his tiny tea farm, it has been completely organic and biodynamic. He also crafts all of his teas by himself, with the utmost care and patience, adhering to traditional craftsmanship.

His organic tea farm is the most pristine, pure, and clean tea farm we have visited during our sourcing trip last year.

The Green Peony is made from only the first harvest leaves in the spring. Each year, production of this tea is limited by weather and how much help Mr. Tang is able to find with harvesting the leaves since the season for this tea is only approximately two weeks. The leaves, strictly one bud and one leaf, must be picked by hand before the Qing Ming Festival, when the climate is dry and before the rainier season sets in. The drier and hotter climate, along with the slow and gradual drying process of over sixty hours is what gives the Green Peony its unique natural creamy and floral notes. The leaves are spread thinly on bamboo trays and placed indoors where they will gently oxidize and dry for over sixty hours. Once the leaves have reached 20% moisture content, they are taken to an outdoor glass house that Mr. Tang built for this very process. There, the leaves are dried under the sun for a few hours each day in the morning, before the rays from the sun becomes too strong.

Lastly, the leaves are placed in a large ceramic jar where it is aged for two weeks. This allows the freshly dried leaves to lose any remaining grassiness.

The result is an extremely elegant tea with exceptional clarity and a warmth and texture that is extremely comforting. It has a natural creamy sweetness and distinct floral aromatics of honeysuckle and calla lily. On the palate, it has distinct notes of fresh apricots, plum blossoms, and mountain flower honey.