Ananda

Patient, complex and elegant, this tea unfolds flavors of hazelnut, pie crust, and fresh bread. Ananda is frank, clean and penetrating with a nice structured bite, which is unexpected in a shou but very pleasant. The Qi is mildly yang, moving throughout the body and slightly uplifting. Previously, I didn't take much interest in Lao Cha Tous ("old tea head") because they are the remains of the puerh production process, which somehow equated to "lower quality" to me. I'd also only had one example, aged from the 80's, that I really enjoyed. UNTIL, I came across Ananda, which the producers refer to as "the essence of shou puerh." It is formed during the wet-piling process, where the tea leaves are stacked and fermented. The heat and weight of the pile causes some leaves to become tightly compressed and clump together, forming the nuggets. 

The producers of this tea refer to it as "the essence of shou puerh" because a lot of tea juices concentrate during the pile fermentation to form the hard nuggets. The Chinese date sweetness that one looks for in shou puerh is strongly present, partially due to the concentration of juices, yielding a long lasting deep aftertaste. Finally, this is definitely the first Lao Cha Tou I've experienced that comes from ancient trees (200-400 years old). You can taste and feel the difference. Unique and wonderful tea for any puerh lover.

The word Ananda refers to the deeper and timeless dimension of happiness, not just a higher degree of the joys that we normally experience in life. In the Hindu Vedas, Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita, Ananda significes eternal bliss that accompanies the ending of the rebirth cycle. This tea is named Ananda because it leaves you feeling like you don't need anything else beyond the moment.

Yongde Mountain, Southwest Yunnan, China - Spring 2025