Latitude: 2000 meters above sea level
Age of ancient tea trees in Snow Mountain region: 200 years old - 2000 years old (from PuEr China research documents)
Location: Snow Mountain Region (LinCang, MengKu)
Poem of MengKu Tea
天下闻名勐库种, World famous MengKu Ancient Trees,
大雪山外亦称雄。 Hero of the Snow Mountain.
双江自古灵秀地 Ancient Divine Beauty at ShuangJiang,
厚德载物永兴隆。 Prosper from High Morality.
Private reserved over 200-500 years old ancient tea trees, which grown on high latitude mountain at the Big Snow Mountain region.
Wildly grown on tea mountain at over 1500 meters above sea level, untouched by modern pollution.
There's no chemical pesticide and fertilizer used on the tea tree. On the other hand, since the tea trees are so tall, which is impossible to apply pesticides or any chemicals.
Ecosystem:
Leaves collected from the old tea trees at LingCang area, where the tea trees grow on high mountains. During the winter, the temperature drops beyond 0 on the top of the mountain. When the Spring arrived, the ice melted, became spring water, running down from the top of the mountain to the tea garden, nourishing the tea trees. The tea trees absorb the minerals and nutrients from the soil, what an amazing ecosystem.
The Tea leaves from this cake were collected by Mr.Li from the Hu's Valley in the Snow Mountain Region, near MengKu, ShuangJiang. ShuangJiang is the origin of the world's tea and is home to the oldest tea tree forest in the world. Hu's valley is located at the "arm" of the BangMa SnowMountain, 2000 meters above sea level. It is next to the famous tea village "BingDao" and it is one of the highest latitude tea villages in MengKu region!
The Wa Ethnic Group and the LaGu Ethnic Group were the earliest residents of Hu's Valley. The tea farmer Mr.Li told us that the Wa Ethnic Group was forced out of the region after losing a tribe's fight in ancient time.
The dried tea leaves from the Hu's Valley are dark green with shinny texture. Local people call Hu's tea "The Big Dark Leaves". The tea soup has a very bright amber yellow color, with scents of orchid and wild honey grown in the area.
Mr.Li told us that the mother tea tree of these tea tree are from the top of the mountain. When their ancestor moved to this village a few hundred years ago, they discovered the wild tea trees. They took the seeds from the wild tea trees and planted more tea trees in the area. Since then the tea trees are wildly grown in their mountain garden.
Li and his villagers breed livestocks, farm and sell raw tea leaves as a living for generations. The closest tea factories is about 2 hours drive away from the tea mountain village. In high temperature days, the raw green leaves often turn bad before they arrive to the factories. When this happens, the tea leaves are sold at a much lower price.
In 2008, the tea market crashed and the tea prices dropped significantly. The ancient tree raw tea leaves were even cheaper than vegetables!
The tea villagers got very desperate and held a meeting in the village. They decided to cut down all the trees , including the ancient tea trees! Why? They wanted to grow agriculture products for living instead.
Fortunately, Mr.Hu, (TanLong Tea's founder) went to the remote mountain in YunNan to search for ancient tea trees. Mr.Hu went to the Hu's valley for the first time in 2008 and was welcomed by the villagers with wine and food feasts. Mr.Hu found out about the villagers 's decision to tear down the hundreds year old tea trees, he immediately stopped them. He told the villagers that the ancient tea trees are treasures from their ancestor. Small tea trees take many generations to grow into huge ancient tea trees. If we go to the tea mountain today, we can still see the scars of the teared down tea tree.
After saving the ancient tea trees, Mr. Hu decided help the villagers with their financial problem, Mr.Hu decided to loan villagers money to build a Raw Tea Leaves Processing House (ChuZhiSuo), so that the villagers can conduct the "kill green or pan fry" process to prevent green leaves from turning bad. In return, Mr.Hu signed tea stream agreements with the villagers to buy up all of their production.
Since then, Mr.Hu collects the ancient tree tea leaves from the Hu's valley every year, and the villagers can sell the younger tree loose tea to tea factories in town.
After a few years, the villagers benefited from the rising tea price. They built concrete roads to the town, built better houses with concrete and expanded their tea production houses. Now, the concrete road between the town and village provide a safer passage for the villagers in harsh weather. The villagers can continue to do trades in the town during rainy days and the children are able to go to school on safer roads. Mr.Hu told us that this village is his secret tea spot, that has lots of natural resources. The taste of the Hu's Valley Ancient Tree Tea has a very strong aroma of wild honey which gives the tea an unforgettable taste of the snow mountain.
Latitude: 2000 meters above sea level
Age of ancient trees in Snow Mountain region: 200 years old - 2000 years old (from PuEr China research documents)
Location: Snow Mountain