‘Peace, Love & Tea’: a tea cake full of promise!

Rewarded by the members of the jury of the “Epicures de l’épicerie fine” who awarded it a silver medal at the end of 2020, our pu’er sheng (young pu’er) tea cake was born from the desire to place under the sign of Camellia Sinensis on our 25^th anniversary, in 2019.

Its name is a reference to all the people we’ve met and the wonderful moments we’ve shared together along the tea trail.

When we explained our project to our partner-producer and long-time friends, they immediately offered to create this limited edition for us from a harvest in the Lincang area that occurred in the spring of 2018, before the festival of light (清明節, Qingmíng jié).

This type of harvest, which lasts only a few days, is intended to make the most precious teas of the year (Mingqian), full of the very aromatic spring sap. Making a pu’er from this type of buds is an atypical thing.

So this is a tea cake of rare pu’er we had pressed for us and the fact that it is sold unfermented, unlike the majority of pu’er available on the French market, adds to its exceptional character. Aficionados will love it…

It is therefore not a dark tea per se, but rather a raw tea similar to green tea with an aromatic bouquet characterised by elegant, fruity flavours with prominent aspects of the soil in which it is grown. This is the type of pu’er which is drunk in Yunnan and which is now increasingly popular over here.

This young pu’er can be drunk straightaway to appreciate its very sweet flavour and gourmet notes of apricot jam. But it can also be laid down for later or be tasted as it evolves and, like a good wine, its aromatic palette will gradually mature, slowly developing the famous tertiary flavours that are generally expected from dark teas.

For connoisseurs who want to make a « tea for laying down » and wait for the development of tertiary aromas, we offer this tea cake in « tong » wafer made of traditional bamboo leaves made up of 7 units.

However, care must be taken to keep this precious vintage tea cake in its original paper, designed so that it can “breathe” and “ripen” in peace.

You will have gathered that this ‘Peace, Love & Tea’ tea cake is a collector’s item and will undoubtedly be talked about in years to come.

It’s a small investment that a few of us here at Les Jardins de Gaïa have made… 😉

Spring picking on old tea plants, Lincang, Yunnan.