2021 Bang Wai Sheng Pu'er Bing (邦崴生普洱餅, Bāng Wǎi Shēng Pǔ'ěr Bǐng, "Bang Wai Raw Pu'er Bing") In the summer of 2021, our Yunnan tea farmer Li Shulin lost his home and all his tea processing equipment when his house burned down. Lacking the ability to produce tea in Nannuo Mountain, his home, he traveled to the farms of various friends and relations around Xishuangbanna. There he produced small batches of autumn-harvested tea from his friends' farms, mostly sheng pu'er but also some shu. Some of these farms are located on famous tea mountains, some are more obscure, but collectively they represent a tour of Xishuangbanna. In the winter of 2021 he pressed these limited production batches into 40 gram bings, which we are excited to be able to offer now after a year and a half of aging.
Bang Wai is located in Lancang County, near the Jingmai mountains. It is the most bitter of the 6 sheng cakes in this series, with a rich molasses fragrance and a persistent, sweet aftertaste (hui gan). The hoppy bitterness of this tea is balanced by its sweet overtones to create a very complex tea that will deepen with age.
