At a daily drinker price, meet the grade of tea that too often gets passed off as gushu.

Mineral-accessing arbor trees with a good amount of decades behind them are known for producing teas with interesting after-breath and throat effects like huigan. It's no surprise then that dashu grade big trees like these closing in on the century mark boasting these characteristics can easily be blended into gushu ancient tree tea.

With a bit more sass and spunk than ancient tree tea right out of the gate, what this Dashu tea lacks in mellowness, patience + longevity, as well as depth of responsiveness in the mid session, it makes up for in personality; a sprightly delivery of the Nannuo Mountain profile.

During the Chinese civil war the black tea export market was effectively shut down in eastern China.  Needing to a new home to meet the demand, projects to plant new tea gardens were rolled out by the Kuomintang who maintained control of southern Yunnan during this time (who later lost the war and fled to Taiwan).  in 1937, 300 acres of new tea plantations were propagated in Nannuo Mountain, all planted by seed.  While much of it was eventually replaced with other crops over the decades, a few of these original tracts remain outside of  Xiangyang Village right down the road to Dá É's factory that she built in 2019.

photo taken from a vista adjacent to Dá É dashu gardens

During their younger years, these tea gardens were annually pruned in the late spring to manage their height at a more harvestable level, the treatment that typical "tabletop" 台地茶 taidi cha plantation bushes get.  Since then they have been left to grow, unpruned and unmanaged by conventional agrochemicals.  This has become a common treatment that we've seen in recent years known as 生态 shengtai, ecological tea farming.  At almost 90 years old, this is a mature shengtai garden.

Dá É only owns less than two acres of these gardens (10 亩).  It doesn't produce much per season, and therefore she treats this garden as a source for experimental materials.  Fortunately for us, Dá É is open to producing affordable experimental teas from these tea gardens by request.