A mountain brick from Damaidi, sourced village by village
In early spring 2024, Michael Zhan made his way to Damaidi village in Mengsong, one of Menghai county’s old tea mountains in Xishuangbanna. He had worked with a family there for several years, and this batch came from a small garden at mid-mountain elevation, where morning fog lingers long enough to slow leaf development and concentrate sweetness. The pluckers took one bud and two leaves from thirty-year-old bushes, and the leaves were processed the same day, wok-fired by hand, rolled gently, and left to dry under the April sun.
A 200-gram brick compression slows the aging, preserving the delicate floral notes while building depth over time. It’s a quiet, deliberate sheng that rewards patience, one of several Menghai-county lots Michael brought back from that spring’s sourcing circuit before they moved on to Sandry Law’s Kunming station for splitting and blind tasting.