Puli Shan Organic "Warm Elephant" Black Tea - Summer 2019

This year is very special. We finally got a chance to process Shan varietal first hand under the Support of Mr. Guo. If you don’t know what Shan is, it is a wild-grown Assamica varietal from a province of Burma called Shan (禪). The varietal was brought to Taiwan in 1930s century to compete with Japanese black tea development in Taiwan by Mr. Guo.

For decades this “Shan” varietal obtained a reputation for being tasty black tea material, but In the end 1970s such reputation begin to fade away with the rising of high mountain jade oolong. Eventually, with the collapse of export market, the aroma and taste of such black tea gradually disappeared from the world. As a result, the tea trees grew wild without intervention for the next decades, which made the process of organic certification very easy to achieve! The tea trees are healthy with deep root systems and growing in a natural bio-diverse environment.

With our philosophy and careful evaluation, this batch of “Taiwan Sourcing made” Shan black tea will be a completely new experience to what you thought you knew about black tea. We also learned a lot of new understanding of black tea processing with this tea under the assistance of Mr. Kuo. The overall character of this black tea is wild yet mature, and the body warming effect is very noticeable. We hope this “Warm Elephant” can make people notice how unique Taiwan’s tea culture is to the world,and how Taiwan has some of the most interesting taste to offer.

Harvest: Summer 2019 / 夏 貳零壹玖
Varietal: Shan / 象
Elevation: 600 M / 陸佰 公尺
Region: Puli / 埔里
Fermentation Level: 85% / 分之 捌拾伍
Roast Level: 0 / 無