Andao’s Organic Golden Yunnan Elegant Velvet Leaves
Dragon transforms your Tea pot into a musical jewelry box full of wonders…
Yunnan Province is considered the birthplace of all tea. Evolutionary tea roots are alive today within the “Jing Mai Ancient Tea Forests”, home to our ancestral tea trees. Some of the oldest tea trees on the planet are there, some 1,300 years and older. Once, I took a stroll through the Metropolitan and Natural History Museums taking in art collections depicting this vast time lineage trying to fathom 5,000 years of tea culture, just one plant?
Yunnan Province is famous for its Scarlet mystery tea called Puerh…
This tea increases in value each year it is aged by 100 percent. Tomorrow is another day as Scarlet says… Surely it will take more than a lifetime to penetrate the soul of this illustrious elixir called Puerh. It is touted for its medicinal weight loss properties, but to call it a weight loss tea only is to slight this mighty tea. Auteur of all tea leaves, you can read more here.
Emerald leaves spawn-oxidize into golden spun skeins of silky tea yarns. Suffusing into a couturier crimson tea collection such as the elegant Hai Lang Dian Hong. Imperial Yunnan leaves have even been praised as having some of Darjeeling’s sweet floral elements. Many lovely traditional Celtic blends merely pantomime the intrinsic richness inherent in this masterpiece from China’s birthplace of Tea.
Perhaps it is Yunnan’s fantastic culture or its clear skies with clouds dotting the its powder blue heavens like kites, which are dreams of its native wild peacocks or peacock orchids? Spunky Golden Monkeys or Red Panda bears! Home of half of all of Chinas 56 recognized ethnic minorities. As well as ½ of its flora and fine fauna too.
Yunnan translates to “South of the Clouds”, it has a lush biodiversity that would make pirate Captain Cook’s head go bling bling or beeng beeng cha the name of their prized teas. A bonnie lassie she be, Queen of the Southern China seas. Marco Polo in the 1,300’s is not credited with sipping tea? Yet he exclaimed after all “I have only told you half of what I have seen”. Is it his best kept secret for he didn’t he say a peep about the camellia sinensis tea plant? We truly shall never know just why he did not abscond with the apple of the many an Emperors eye? Sweet beautiful languid tea leaves.
Yunnan Province in Southern China Borders Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar (Burma). Here four of the worlds”s major rivers, the Yangtze, Mekong Salween and Irawady, pass within 55 miles of each other. It is a veritable magical Shangri-la and home of the famous aged and pressed puerh tea. Sometimes known as drinking antiquity, as puerh is often made from ancient ancestral tea trees then aged endlessly. Yunnan Province is also home to the legendary Tea and Horse Road which dates back to the Tang Dynasty. Marco Polo traveled here leaving with looms of heirloom Chinese silks. In the tapestry of time? Primordial sipping of ancient silky Yunnan teas get a new loom in 1938 barely 67 years ago.
The time line shows a steep shift from solely pressed teas in 1938 and lets its golden tresses loose with a coutour tailoring from its precious pressed and sculpted brocades of puerh only to the modern day darling of all afternoon tea parties. A cup of gold indeed. I find my self imagining daughter of fortune and treasures Doris Duke? Doris Duke may have sipped some back in the 1950’s during her travels through South East Asia en route to her beloved Thailand.
If ever a chic Afternoon tea were tailored for a sleepy lazy moment of dreaming of lands far far away. Yunnan began concocting this special tailored leaf long after the Victorian Indian Tea craze of its British denizens. As of 1940’s Yunnan golden tea has now surely marked its perfect pitch as a forgiving, mellow honey sweet leaf sharing some characteristics with its relative in puerh teas. Yunnan province is famous for “beengs” of puerh, “rare editions” that can garner quadruple their weight in gold and beckon literally as a wise investment akin to an Art collector keeping a Monet.
Yunnan’s golden leaves are suave and sweet with less bitterness, forgiving as in easy to steep. You could even say “User friendly” or benevolent. Peppery, full bodied with notes of fig with little astringency unfurl into a ruby elixir which made even Queen Elizabeth declare it “It’s simply grande”
Sumptuous leaves are relaxed and give and give many infusions. So we like her very much indeed. Much more even than a malty lush Assam Mangalam. Perfect for morning when your alarm clock is on snooze or lazy afternoons it pairs well with desserts and holds up quite well to savory good eats.
Rob Henrich, An American Tea master who perfects the exacting preparations it takes to extract the subtle nuances in his beloved Chinese tea rarities. Rob Henrich has made his home in China. Taking pains to work with growers whom specialize in ORGANIC tea varietals. He has thrown down with the best of Yunnan’s tea aficionados. Maybe he will be our Bobby Flay of Chinese tea. He is a walking golden compass of the matrix of China’s language idioms, calligraphy and is also a South East Culture buff whose fiancé named “Note” is gaining her masters degree in Chinese language. She is a budding Chef from Thailand. Their passions inform their radical tea. Tea on a pedestal, adored the with the same virtuosity as an Iron Chef does their truffles! Beautiful varietals sacrosanct as a jewel crafted by the greatest Chef of all why of course Mother Nature! Andao speaks Tea. They have a bevy of high frequency tea as they live mise en scene 24/7 in the birthplace of all tea.
Dynamic Yunnan fresh leaves and buds. Check out their offerings here. They have promised some of this finest Yunnan Gold bullion to the extreme. I have tasted and been converted now how can I learn to speak tea? Please speak to Percival the Peacock and the Red panda Bear whom are having a lavish tea party dressed in stunning brocades in the wilds of Yunnan. Yunnan Gold is available here in loose leaf tea tubes along with some other rare varietals direct from China. Check out their website live from Yunnan.
Andao means “Way of Peace” I feel peaceful too drinking a cup of golden prosperity!
Purchase tea tubes with Yunnan Golden leaves here.
http://andaotea.myshopify.com/products/organic-yunnan-gold
Browse Andao’s website here:
Copyright photos from Andao Tea.
Nice post thanks for the information herbs are really good for a healthy living.