MOONLIT MIST | Bamboo Steamed, Ancient Tree (White) - O5 RARE TEA BAR

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MOONLIT MIST | Bamboo Steamed, Ancient Tree (White)

MOONLIT MIST | Bamboo Steamed, Ancient Tree (White)

O-FIVE RARE TEA BAR

$25.00

30g
200g

Rich, amber brew with notes of dried fruit and (unsurprisingly) bamboo; superb lingering mouthfeel.

This tea was made with ancient tree leaves from Huazhu Liangzi. The leaves were pressed, steamed and dried in bamboo, imparting a silky smooth nature to the leaves.

Please note that every piece of bamboo has a different diameter; empirically, we estimate that each piece may contain +/- 5% of the declared content of 200g.

White Tea Steamed and Pressed in Bamboo? A long game of flavour.

Steaming white tea seems a bit counter-intuitive at first...until you realize how bamboo and careful aging impart a whole new range of flavours in your leaves. White moonlight tea leaves, air dried slowly in Yunnan's spring, are quite brittle. Steam makes them soft and malleable again, allowing the artisan to press them into a tea cake, or to pack them in pieces of green bamboo. Those chunks of bamboo are then roasted over charcoal, allowing the steam (essence) of the bamboo to be imbedded into the tea leaves.

It is important to do this slowly, preventing the leaves from being over-cooked and the bamboo from being burned. It is also critical to dry the tea thoroughly, allowing it to age without any interference of mould.

Bamboo is both a container (it's really cool to have one of these 'tea sticks) and a co-author; it has a significant impact on the flavour and mouthfeel of your tea.

Modern Pu'er City storage standards codify this explicitly, specifying bamboo materials that are clean, mould-free, and structurally sound. But bamboo also contributes something of its own. Studies on bamboo-tube teas have identified over 40 volatile compounds in the resulting liquor — among them linalool (floral, slightly citrus), eucalyptol (cool, woody), phenylacetaldehyde (honeyed, aldehydic), and lactone-type notes that read as warm and almost creamy. These compounds come from both the tea and the bamboo, layered together over time into something neither would produce alone.

Origin: Huazhu Liangzi (Yunnan)

Production: 2024 (using 2023 leaves)

Brewing recommendation: 5g tea / 110g water @ 90°C, 25", >15 steeps

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Tea Authors:

Fan Xiuli and Gao Feng are featured often in our newsletters. They are Manchu people from Liaoning who moved to Yunnan because they love tea; it is also a most beautiful place to live and raise a family. Not only do they create some of O5’s favourite teas; they are also very well versed in painting, calligraphy, incense appreciation, ceramics, and culinary arts.