Skinny Chicken
One River Tea
Regular price
$46.00
Sale
This is the third year sourcing tall arbor tea from this unknown mountain in Lincang. Sourcing puer can be an adventure because every mountain in Yunnan creates its own style of tea, and while there are some long-term favorites out there, like Yiwu and Xigui, there are a hundred times more lesser or unknown regions. There is always the chance that you can source gold, a great tea from an unknown mountain for a very fair price, that’s what Kuashan is for us, and those that have had the Skinny Chicken in the past know it to be an incredible sweet tea at an unbeatable price.
Sourced from our friend Lan Jie’s ancestral mountain, this tea is modest and off the beaten path of famous Lincang teas. It does however encapsulate that Lincang sweetness with less of the intense bitterness and power of its Xishuang Banna cousins, it creates a tea that is pleasant whenever we drink it.
Fragrances of tropical fruit juice leech off the leaves when placed in a warmed gaiwan, with undercurrents for floral fragrances reminiscent of honeysuckle and daffodil, while something meatier lingers in the background. More vegetal notes take over as the leaves are infused with water, yielding up fragrances of sage or crushed bedstraw.
The brew is fantastically smooth, like warm cream on the palette. A pale gold that can steep darker if desired with a powerful minerality that lingers with an undeniable sweetness. This is a fantastic raw puer to those averse to the stronger more bitterly powerful teas of the southern mountains. When brewed properly (quick infusion times) that classic Lincang sweetness finds a delicate floral body, and defines this tea as a different kind of puer for those searching for variety.
While it is made from tall qiaomu trees, this is not ancient material, but leaves picked from 50 to 80 year old trees. Thus, it has the potential to powerful bitterness if left to steep overlong, but as a result, the chaqi is quite powerful, and its quickly dissolving bitterness that yields a nice huigan is reminiscent of nearby Xigui. The thickness of body peaks around the fourth infusion, yielding sweeter and sweeter cups until the flavors blend together into a late session of warm sugared water.