2024
2024 Prickly Pear Red Tea
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Whole hand-rolled red tea leaves, stuffed into sun-dried prickly pear shells and slowly aged through traditional contact-drying. The fruit acts as a natural vessel, transferring its sugars and fruity character deep into the leaf over time. The result is a hongcha unlike any other: exceptionally sweet, smooth, and complex.
Questions? Message us on WhatsAppDirect from the farm
Bought in person from the farmer who made it, on a yearly sourcing trip to China.
Tasted before bought
We taste every lot ourselves before we buy, often against alternates from the same village.
Small lots, single origin
Every tea is named by its village, farmer, and harvest year. Never a warehouse blend.
What is Prickly Pear Red Tea?
This red tea undergoes an additional transformation that sets it apart from any standard hongcha. Whole hand-rolled red tea leaves are stuffed directly into sun-dried prickly pear fruit shells and left to age through a process called contact-drying. During this time, the tea absorbs the natural sugars and fruity compounds from the fruit wall, with no flavoring agents and no added sweeteners. The prickly pear acts purely as a vessel and a slow, natural source of flavor.
The leaves are pressed tightly inside the fruit, which also affects how they compress and age, similar in principle to how stored teas develop complexity over time, but here the environment is a fruit rather than a warehouse.
In the cup, the difference is immediately noticeable. The sweetness is pronounced and natural, the fruity note is subtle but persistent, and the texture is exceptionally smooth, qualities that a standard red tea wouldn’t produce on its own.
Each serving uses two fruit pieces and contains enough leaf for multiple steeps, making it well-suited for gongfu brewing.
Tasting Notes
Naturally sweet and smooth, with a delicate fruity note and a clean, lingering finish.
Oxidation
Stimulation
Fermentation
Body
Brewing Instructions
- Amount
- 5 gper 200 ml
- Temperature
- 90–99°C194–210°F
- Infusion Time
- 20 sec+5 sec each steep
- Infusions
- Up to 10
Rinse the leaves once with hot water before the first steep.
Aging & Storage
Store in a cool, dry, airtight container away from light and strong smells
Origin
Origin
Meitan, Guizhou
Cultivar
Fuding Dabaicha
Elevation
1200 meters
Meitan County in Guizhou is a mountainous region in southwestern China, known for its cool weather, mineral-rich soil, and limited sunlight. The area sees only around 165 sunny days a year, and the persistent cloud cover and mist slow the growth of the tea plant, giving the leaves time to develop a fuller, more concentrated flavor. Dense forests of conifers, oak, and chestnut cover much of the county, keeping the environment clean and undisturbed. Tea has been grown here for centuries: Meitan’s teas were referenced by Lu Yu in the Tang Dynasty, author of the world’s first tea monograph, and later praised as tribute tea during the Qing Dynasty.
