Zhang Family

(Tongmuguan Black Tea)

Explore the our collection of the world’s first black tea: Lapsang Souchong (Zhengshan Xiaozhong 正山小种). All our Lapsang Souchong comes from one 5 generation production household, the Zhang Family.

Their 100+ year-old-tree garden is behind their ancestral home high in the village of Masu 1250 meters above main Tongmuguan Nature Preserve on the borders of Jiangxi and Fujian, China.

The Masu Lapsang Souchong is characterized by large wild-looking leaves easily distinguishable from other tongmuguan village productions. While we sell the old bush teas from their high-mountain garden, we also sell the lower elevation teas that they buy from other households in tongmuguan to make with their traditional methods.

In this region, this production style has been going on for centuries and has been fine tuned and perfected over the years.  While other farmers in different regions can make a smoked black tea, none of them have this unbroken legacy of generational knowledge, the specific tree types used to stoke the fires, the hundred-year plus trees, or the specific environmental elements that make the Tongmuguan black tea so remarkable and one of a kind.

We have decided to stock both the traditional smoked Lapsang Souchong, and the more modern unsmoked types of this tea.  Be sure to check out the Age & Beauty Sample Box if you’re new to this type of tea or to our specific high-mountain Masu Village offerings.

We visited Biebei Zhang and her family in April and May of 2021, and were blown away by the traditional ways of making tea up in these isolated mountains. Check out the detailed blog post about the Zhang Family, and watch the YouTube Sourcing trip!