Reception to P'u Ming has exceeded our expectations!
'P'u Ming' is a handcrafted, single-origin shoucha produced by Yimu's father. When indigenous herbalist and 'barefoot doctor' Su Wenxin decided that, for health reasons, he should begin consuming more shoucha, it was natural that he should craft it himself.
Doctor Su understood that if he wished to impart complexity to a single village tea he would have to rely on his understanding of diversity within Mangjing's own tea gardens. He selected raw material from several different gardens and adapted his pan-frying technique to account for the fact that this tea would subsequently undergo pile-fermentation. His understanding of pile-fermentation was informed by a long time friendship with Lancang Ancient Tea Factory's former fermentation master Li Meiying. It's not a coincidence that she is also responsible for overseeing the fermentation of our Xiangtu material, as she is respected throughout the region for her knowledge of Jingmai Mountain tea.
Theasophie is a family-based tea agroforestry project, and we could not be more pleased to offer this latest shoucha production. During our travels and talks on tea, we often allude to the fact that, historically, upland tea cultivators never consumed Pu'er tea. So, for an upland herbalist from one of the oldest tea producing villages in the world to take it upon himself to produce shoucha, a recent style of accelerated fermentation developed in the early-1970's, is a truly remarkable achievement.