Forest floor, soft under our feet, smell of wood & earth. Moonlight filters through the canopy, a momentary respite in this primeval woodland sanctuary. This homage to our 1999 CNNP 'Old Tree Round Tea' and the third tea in our 'Original Ecology' series is crafted from Lincang County old-growth material. Meticulously cellared for several years so as to yield a smooth liquor containing aged (chenxiang) and medicinal (yaoxiang) aromatics:
寂淡本真藏歲月之醇
…true origin silent and undifferentiated
pure fragrance the store of years …
Original Ecology is a journey into the interior. It is a return to the source. Composed of leaf from the subtropical forests of southwest China, the botanical & cultural heartland of tea. Liu I-ming explains,
The southwest is the direction of earth, the realm where the new moon returns, where yin at its extreme gives birth to yang. In people, this is the time of beginning movement when stillness has reached its extreme. This movement from the extreme of stillness is precisely when the great medicine appears.*
* from The Secret of the Golden Flower, translated by Thomas Cleary
