From Michael Zhan’s home mountain to your cup
Nannuo Shan is the garden Michael Zhan 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. He knows this mountain’s micro-terroirs by feel: 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, he stayed in a small Hani family compound during spring picking, walking the rows before dawn with the farmers who 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 Sandry Law’s Kunming station, it moved straight to listing, one season, one garden, and the same buyer who was there for the harvest.