New Kicks 2023 Xiao Hu Sai Orb

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This item is a small 7 gram single-session pressing of the larger similarly named 200 gram cake: same material, same maker, same press date.  We offer them individually or in sets of three.

Xiao Hu Sai is the name of a village with a large amount of gushu and dashu trees on in the South West Shadow of Big Snow Mountain, in Mengku, Lincang, Yunnan.  We've heard about this region ever since we started sourcing tea from Lincang, the common sentiment is that Bingdao is too expensive, Da Xue Shan is overproducing young bush puer, but Xiao Hu Sai has some really great gushu material undiluted with an abundance of newer, smaller tea trees.  

We visited the gardens in April of 2024 and the drive out there was one of the more difficult mountain dirt roads we have experienced in the past decade of sourcing teas.  Utterly impassable if the rain falls, the roads are dreadfully uneven and hitch back all the way up and down and backup a few mountains.  Like a crowning jewel, one can see the Xiao Hu Sai village clinging to the ridge of a mountain for a majority of the ride, as you drive down into the valley and up the steep slopes.  Villages like this maintain their ecological integrity by their sheer remoteness.  While this isolation doesn't directly ensure a higher quality tea, it is certainly a good sign.

As characteristic of teas from Xiao Hu Sai, New Kicks has a powerful upfront bitterness that fades almost immediately into a lingering sweetness.  This is one of the more powerful Mengku teas we have tried, and this first bitter, then sweet reminds us of our beloved Xigui.  

The leaves have an incredible sweetness in them, at first reminding us of fresh baked cake, then transforming to something much more fruity, almost to the point of candy (see the Fruit Loops tasting note).  While we get tropical fruit fragrances, like grava, from the wet leaves, this translates to something more akin to papaya in the soup.