Master Wei
Master Wei is an award winning dancong producer at the center of a family-run enterprise. He has several gardens high in the Phoenix Mountains near Wudong Shan and only harvests once a year, in spring. During this time, his wife manages the picking team of up to 70 women, while Wei spends the days )(and long nights) overseeing the withering, shake wilting, kill green, rolling, and bake drying production process with a alternating group of apprentices keen to learn the art.
The gardens whence come these teas are old and beautiful, full of terraced rows of mossy trees that are harvested by pickers on sturdy wooden ladders. They are never pruned, allowing them to grow several meters tall. Wei cultivates and processes over 100 varieties, and focuses on the laocong and yunwei tastes. As a result, his teas focus on the incredibly high quality leaf and when roasting, he tends toward a lighter roast (we would go as far to say that his ‘medium-roast’ is similar to other producer’s ‘light-roast’)!
We’ve visited Wei nearly every Spring since 2018, read up on our blog about these tea trips!