This is a really interesting tea from Phong Thổ, Lai Châu.
 
Producing this tea requires a long walk into the ancient tree gardens at over 2200m in elevation. Picking the leaves to make this tea is also an arduous task as some of the trees here grow over 20m tall!
 
The raw material used to make this tea comes from a non-Sinensis tea tree varietal that has leaves that are red/ purple/ dark green in color.
 
This tea brews up with a thick pale copper colored soup. The flavor is really complex. You'll notice a woody- tree root, sweet-slightly sour tamarind like flavor that starts building in the throat after a few cups. Strong huigan lasts well after the session has finished. I like brewing it at 90-100 degrees for long steeps.
 
The 2023 tea season in Lai Châu had more sunny days than in 2022. The sun-drying step in making this tea had more of an effect on the finished tea than the 2022 version. Expect more floral fragrances and a bit lighter on the sugar spectrum of sweetness. Quite interesting to compare the two if you still have any of the 2022 batches around.
 
This is a strong tea with an intense qi effect. Not for the faint-hearted!
 
These trees are so difficult to harvest being so tall and deep in the forest, so different trees are picked on different days. Because of these reasons, this tea is made in a few different batches.
 
The flavor profile of this tea is a bit different batch to batch due to the differences in raw material and slight differences in processing. The producer chooses to not blend all the season's batches together to highlight and appreciate the suddle differences.
 
I agree that this is a really interesting and positive approach and just makes this tea all the more interesting.
 
Season: Spring 2023
Picking Standard: 2-3 leaves and some buds
Region: Phong Thổ, Lai Châu
Elevation: 2200-2600m