FatBat Private Pressing Gushu Raw Puerh 观音山 倚邦 古树 A deeply obscure grove at the edge of Yibang, just bordering Man Zhuan. The Goddess of Mercy Peak (Guan Yin Shan) was only uncovered in 2020 by several prominent Chinese collectors. Each year, this tea has been sold quickly on the private market due to minuscule quantities. This year we have secured a full mixed gushu picking from this grove, courtesy of our good friend in Man Zhuan, Farmer Zhang Lan (who also personally picks many of our other Guoyoulin state forest teas). The trees growing here are a combination of small and medium-leaved varietals, very representative of Yibang and eastern Man Zhuan mountains. This is a classic Guoyoulin (protected state forest) style tea from the deep jungle – a clear silken soup, delicate and high floral fragrance and a vanilla-custard nature emerging in late steeps. A noble experience, impressively sweet. TASTING NOTES First steeps are clear and light, with a powerfully sweet aroma at the bottom of the fairness cup. High-pitched white florals with a silky character, like a cream of jasmine flower. Intense sweetness coupled with the damp greenness of jungle mosses. An entrancing deep forest tea with excellent throat texture and luxurious mouthfeel. The apparent delicacy of this tea is deceiving – a core of smooth tannin gives it a pleasurable body and the promise of developing further complexity as it matures. TERROIR Despite its name, Guan Yin Shan is not exactly a mountain, but rather a grove named after the Goddess of Mercy “Guan Yin”, a beloved deity in Chinese folklore. This mountainous micro-region is rarely mentioned as it sits in a transitional area between Yibang and Man Zhuan territories. It has been long known as a harvest ground for valuable morels, and we were told that the small ancient tea tree grove here was inadvertently discovered by mushroom pickers some 5-6 years ago. The tea trees are very few in number, but the ecology is pristine and truly wild, with the trees rarely picked until recent years (and even so, only once a year). An interesting terroir which yields tea that has both the noble floral delicacy of Yibang, alongside the powerful sweetness of Man Zhuan.
Sample (20g), Full Cake (200g), Tong (1kg - 5 cakes)