The Nannuo Mountain Range is located, like most other renowned Pu Erh tea mountains, far to the south in the Chinese province of Yunnan near the border with Burma/Myanmar and Laos. The mountains reach elevations of 800-1,500m and have a mild climate with warmer winters and moderate summers.
Pu Erh tea from Nannuo Shan enjoys an outstanding reputation, due both to the ideal growing conditions for tea trees and to the region’s long-standing tea tradition. The production of Pu Erh tea here can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD).
The region is populated by the Hani cultural minority, who share a spiritual connection with the old Pu Erh trees. As a result of the growing demand for Nan Nuo Shan Pu Erh, these trees are both the basis of cultural traditions as well as a means of livelihood and financial security. With due respect to the central role that these trees play in their lives, the Hani people carefully attend to the tea trees.
Storage
This tea was produced in 2014 and stored for maturation in Guang Zhou, China until 2018. Since 2018 the tea has continued to age under controlled conditions in the Yoshi en Pu Erh storage facility.
Centuries-Old Pu Erh Trees
The tea plants used for Pu Erh are indigenous, large-leaf varieties that are traditionally cultivated in a semi-wild manner. Unlike the conventional tea plants most widely grown around the world, the Pu Erh cultivar does not develop as a low shrub but grows into a tree, capable of living for several thousand years. Scientific study suggests that this cultivar is the common ancestor of all other types of tea. It is native to the four-border region of China, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, with the Chinese part located in Yunnan province. As the earliest attempts at cultivating tea are most closely associated with Yunnan’s history, the people of Yunnan fondly refer to their homeland as the “cradle of all tea”. In Yunnan’s tea forests, no two tea trees are alike. Each develops its own individual growth pattern and is covered with distinct mosses and fungal cultures, meaning that every tree produces its "own" unique tea. The older the tree, the deeper its roots extend into the earth and into deep layers of rock and stone, allowing it to absorb minerals and trace elements that are then passed on to the leaves and buds. For this reason, teas from these wild-growing ancient tea trees are considered especially precious and are highly sought after.
