White bud Ya Bao Puer tea

The white bud Ya Bao is a kind of tea which is hard to put in a defined typology between the six we know. The leaves of this product, in fact, come from some camelia, assamica variety, grown in Yunnan but, after the harvest, they are processed using the method for a white tea production. So we can define this tea as a hybrid between the plants of origin of a puer and the processing used for obtaining a white tea. Beside this peculiar feature the Ya Bao has another characteristic which is noticeable by looking at the product itself. The leaves, in fact, are harvested at the end of the Winter (a while before the canonic first picking time) while the gems on the plants are opening in preparation of the luxuriant growth favored by the warm Spring temperatures. This choice provides a product where the flavors are still a lot concentrated in the thick leaves of the games which are especially rich in vegetal compounds don’t elaborated by the energy of the sunlight.

During the tasting time you could clearly taste the difference in the vegetal aspects between this tea and a canonic white tea. On the palate, in fact, you can feel a quite fresh eucalyptus taste followed by a soft sweetness reming of some ripe lychee. Sip after sip you can notice and increasing of the sweetness and the freshness which also start showing a bit dry sensation similar to the one you can get when you eat some fresh snow. In the end we also want to remind you to enjoy the body of this infuse which, because of the thick leaves, maybe requires some additional steeping seconds to give its best but then it will reward you with a rounded and pleasant beverage nice to drink hot in Winter and cold in the Summer.

Place of origin

Yunnan China 

Production

The leaves after the harvest whiter under the sunlight for a while before going into the next step where, indoor, they dry naturally or helped with hot air. The processing of this tea is really simple because wants to let the leaf dry really slowly and maintain a low level of oxidation in order to not change too much the vegetal flavors but allow the product to gain more structure and body. Once dried the leaves are sorted and then they are ready to be consumed.

Preparation

We invite you to brew this tea in the traditional Chinese style (gong fu cha) in order to extract more from your leaves. Following this preparation you could use 4.5 grams of leaves (about 3 teaspoons) in a gaiwan of 100 ml so you can obtains more infusions with different flavors. After a brief rinse of the leaves in a 85°C water you can go with a first infusion of 20 seconds and, after that, at the same water temperature, you can do multiple infusion adding 10 seconds every steeping time (20 – 30 – 40…) 

These leaves could be steep about 7 times.

To prepare the tea in the western style we suggest 3 grams of leaves (about 2 teaspoons) in a 150 ml cup with 85°C water for a steeping time of one minute and an half.

The tea could be filtered if you want to avoid some little piece of the leaves during the tasting time and also the steeping time we recommend here could be modify on your personal preferences.

We recommend you to store this tea in a dry and cool place avoiding the direct sun light on the leaves.