From Nannuo Shan to your cup
Nannuo Shan is the garden this shop returns to more than any other. Tea trees planted by the Hani people some six hundred years ago rise here from a forest floor thick with ferns, between 1,200 and 1,800 metres, an altitude that slows growth and concentrates amino acids in the bud. The mountain’s micro-terroirs differ plainly: the granite-rich slopes above Banpo village give a pronounced mineral backbone, while the shadier eastern faces produce softer, more floral lots.
In late March 2025, at a small Hani family compound, the farmers walked the rows before dawn during spring picking and harvested only the top bud and two leaves from each shoot on a cool, overcast morning to lock in freshness. The leaves were withered on bamboo trays in the mountain breeze, pan-fired over iron woks, twisted by hand, and sun-dried before a stone-lever press preserved the leaf’s cellular structure.
The cake shows the altitude plainly: crisp, clean, and aromatic, carrying the chill of the high slopes. Once split and blind-tasted at the Kunming station, it moved straight to listing, one season, one garden, sourced on the ground at harvest.