Big Blessing (2008)

The Big Blessing has complexity in its nature due to the distinctly unique raw materials in the blend. We have found, through gung fu manipulation, that you can exalt different elements as you wish - once you get familiar with it.

 

WET LEAF:

rust colored, highly dense pressed leaf showing heavy fermentation • visible blend of broken, coarse leaf and young tip shoots

 

BROTH:

ripe, dense, thick • unctuous liquor with some suspended substance • taste is generous and full-bodied • fruity, woody, mineral-rich with date flavor • butterscotch with ginsing bud character

 

ENERGY:   

this tea is benevolent, descending in you like a himalayan sunset • electric and alive, while passive and contemplative

Maybe this tea is a little sentimental for me. It tastes like Tengchong, Yunnan, my adopted home. The blessing of getting to spend time in this town where my teacher Master Wang was born and raised has steeped into my bones, and anything that sparks remembrance of this place is dear to me.

 

Big Blessing is a wonderfully signature representation of the terroir in the Tengchong area. From what I understand, the further north you go, the slower the growth of the tea plants. The colder the climate, the more stunted. This, in the case of Tengchong, leads to a very condensed liquor and sweet dried fruit notes along the lines of Turkish apricot, black figs, and currents. As stated in the broth description, there is a gentle ginsing-bud character riding on that sweetness.It now does have quite a following and is a good teaching aid for following the maturation and mellowing of a relatively young but highly refined shou pu-erh.