Ira's Update on the 2008 Nayun Gushu GMS Conference Beeng

One of the readers Ira has kindly provided some insight into my co-worker's friend's beeng.

Your 2008 gushu beeng is made with Na Yun's ancient tea trees - got the following brief description from puershop.com - sorry but this is the only website google provided that has na yun tea related info... "2011 Nayun Ancient Tree Green Pu-erh Cake (那允古树茶) The tea was harvested from ancient tea trees (over 300 year old) at Anlang Mountain (2000-2500m above the sea level) that closes to Jingmai Mountain.A Nayun tea is less known to most people, and its tea is truly grown wild in the most natural environment." Na Yun is a hill/mountain about 7 km away from Meng Lian (wikipedia: Menglian Dai, Lahu and Va Autonomous County (孟连傣族拉祜族佤族自治县; pinyin: Mènglián dǎizú lāhùzú wǎzú Zìzhìxiàn) is an autonomous county under the jurisdiction of Pu'er Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China.)  ..... Meng Lian used to be a very important puerh tea city on the cha ma gu dao/ancient tea horse road, and it is supposedly around a few km from Burma. the maocha they produced supposedly of very high quality. (I got this info from a book - Pu-Erh Tea Talk by Wu De-Lian) Also, on the bottom the producer's name is Puerh Tian Fu (http://www.pettf.com/) seems like they are not related to Ten Fu (Ten Ren) China even though the name is similar. Happy drinking! best regards, Ira.

Thank you Ira as pettf.com is a source of some very interesting research.

I do most of my chinese web surfing on Google Chrome (Canary) and so I was able to read that Tian Fu is trying to improve on the floor/shovel method of shu fermentation. A translation of the process:

"In my tea factory workshop, a long conveyor belt runs through the entire plant. The process in general is as follows: Pu'er tea after entering the shop, using negative pressure cyclone separation principle, raw materials are winnowed automatically to avoid resulting tea fragmentation. Teas are filtered out with a belt conveyor to automatic mixers, avoid artificial mixing by the sprinkler stir (uneven) and then by conveyor belt to the top of the fermentation greenhouse, wood laying. After one cycle, according to the degree of fermentation, so that automated tiered tea transported to the next level, and so on, each pass breathable, aerobic, temperature, humidity, thickness uniformity, avoid piling up too thick, or the temperature becoming to too high.  Water does not become too heavy to cause heartburn, mildew and other undesirable consequences. Upon completion of the fermentation, tea is conveyed to the drying room. After drying, tea automatically goes through a second winnowing. Tea is last finished last by applying ultraviolet disinfection, sterilization, packaging, you can sell."

I would imagine Lao Cha Tous are rare with such a system.  The company has their fingers in all sorts of research- providing pu-erh to AIDS patients as well as growing purple "winsomely" tea using modern greenhouse techniques.

I'm definitely curious to try more of their products esp. their shu produced in this new fangled way. They sell a loose shu translated as "ups and downs of life (沉浮人生)" which most likely is such an example. (I'll go to lunch tomorrow with my Kunming colleague.)