Tea Origin

Naka Village, Mengsong Township, Menghai County, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, China

Tea Bush

Yunnan Dayezhong (Yunnan Large Leaf Heirloom Tea Tree)

Tea Maker

Gong Liping and Ran Yijun

Harvest Time

Late March

Plucking Standard

One bud, two leaves

This classic Sheng puer is the main tea produced in Naka Village, still made by the old traditional method of drying the freshly made tea by the hot noon sun.

This tea is both enjoyable to drink now as well as an excellent candidate for aging.

The same leaves from this origin have also been made into a black tea as our.

The Naka Village Micro-Origi

The Naka region high in the mountains of Xishuangbanna in Yunnan has a long history of tea production, mostly for puer tea. At such high elevation, the subtropical rainforest is constantly surrounded by misty clouds and diffuse light year-round–ideal tea-growing conditions.

In the Mengsong area where this tea was sourced, the rural communities are mostly inhabited by people of the Lahu ethnic minority. They have a long tradition of planting new tea trees in the forest gardens every spring. As a result, hundreds of acres of old tea gardens are made up of a mix of mature and young trees, as well as an unusual mix of large-leaf and small-leaf tea plant varieties. Surrounded by the fruit trees, flowers, and ferns of the natural forest, the unique environment of Naka has developed a tea that possesses an warm floral aroma and a very persistent aftertaste. The trees here also yield a particularly smooth, soft flavor that has made it popular for using in black tea in recent years.

No chemical fertilizer, pesticide, or herbicide was used in the production of this tea.

A Naka tea garden. Many of the older trees have lichen and moss growing on their trunks and branches.