A one of a kind sheng pu’er (raw pu’erh), spring 2025 harvest from the Yiwu Mountains in Xishuangbanna, southern Yunnan, China. The tea grows on the outskirts of the village of Ma Ba 馬叭村, from ancient tea trees (gushu) in the eastern Yiwu area near the Laos border, in dense jungle conditions on extremely steep slopes. Only local, highly experienced pickers have the access and ability to locate these trees; we were not permitted to enter the area ourselves.
Our story with Tian Men Shan 天門山 (Sky Gates Mountain) began in Yunnan in late March 2024, when we first tasted, during harvest, an early, still raw batch of Gao Gan (exceptionally tall trees) that felt unlike any pu’er we had tasted since we began sourcing independently in Yunnan in 2018. Tropical fruit, a persistent sticky mouthfeel, and a long huigan that is impossible to forget. The price was slightly high, but we decided to commit and purchased several dozen kilograms of the final batch. Shortly afterward, literally within a few weeks, those gao gan trees of Tian Men Shan became the talk of the pu’er world across China, and prices skyrocketed, living up to the tea’s name. It is now referred to in China as “the material of the decade,” where today one must be an expert to avoid counterfeits and blends, since there are clearly not enough Gaogan trees at Sky’s Gate to support the amount of batches on the market. What has become very common is harvesting from anonymous neighboring mountains, sometimes dozens of kilometers away from Tian Men Shan, and selling it under the same name. It has always been the old trick with famous regions, especially when the trend is so new.
All of this took place in spring 2024. Now, we have bad news and good news:
The bad news are that the tea offered here for sale is not that same prestigious batch, but rather a newer harvest from spring 2025 from the same mountain, made from “regular” ancient trees (shown in the photos) up to 300 years old, not gao gan. The good news are that this is a wonderful tea at a significantly lower cost than gao gan, a 100% original reference tea that was not purchased through traders or collectors, but directly from the teamakers with whom we have worked for years.
Intended for experienced pu’er drinkers, and especially for collectors who know how to age tea properly. Limited stock in our aging warehouse in Tel Aviv, not expected to last long. The tea is packed in packaging suitable for long term aging and will not be sold in samples.
And what about the 2024 gao gan? It is doing well, thank you, aging with us in both loose form and tea cakes in our pu’er basement in Xiamen. The loose version can be ordered directly from us, and many already have. The cakes, as expected, will need to wait a few more years before reaching maturity.