DETAILED TASTING NOTES

Warm Leaf Smell: loquat, savoury miso, and somehow a bit smoky like a sausage
Wet Leaf Smell: cultured butter, bamboo sprouts
Texture Feel: medium-thick, milky, coating
Taste: white asparagus, wisteria, fresh wood, raspberry leaf, wild thyme. Gets sweeter over infusions
Finish Feel: smooth, satisfying development, dry to juicy, cooling
Empty Cup Smell: herbal syrup
Aftertaste: sweet blanched lettuce and herbs
Body Feel: light, relaxed, clear

Category: White Tea
Native Name: 景迈白茶
Harvest: 2025 April
Origin: Nuogang and Baixiang ancient forests, Jingmai mountain, Lancang Lahu autonomous county, PuErh city (Simao), Yunnan province, China
Cultivar: Dayezhong (Big leaf)
Altitude: 1,300–1,550m

This one grew on me. Sausage Party intrigued me first, but I kept coming back to it until we decided to get it. It opens with savoury funk and transforms over infusions into something herbal and sweet. Give it time in the session, it rewards patience.

Gongfu brewing:
95°C
5g /100ml
1st infusion: 15sec, next: +5sec/infusion
12 infusions
 
Feel free to start from a lower temperature and gradually work up to boiling over infusions.

Jingmai mountain, Yunnan, is home to some of the largest ancient tea forests in the world, five of them, covering approximately 1,180 hectares. These are not monocultures but complete living ecosystems, with around 1,500 species of native seed plants and 253 species of terrestrial vertebrates, within which tea trees have been growing for centuries. We have visited producers across many villages on the mountain and sourced from two that stood out to us, both from Nuogang , also the best-preserved Dai ethnic village in Jingmai.
 
This tea comes from the first producer we found there: a young, charismatic guy who brews beautifully and whose trees range from a hundred to genuinely ancient years old, so we call it what it is: old and ancient trees (dash/gushu). His teas always have an unusual character and never stop surprising us.