Spring Creek 2018

The best way to describe the feeling one gets when sipping this tea may be 'grounded': its dark flavors and inky brew pull the feet into the earth, righting the body upwards. Harvested from in Menghai County, just on the edge of the Burmese border, its producer focuses on sourcing leaves from old tea trees, and the liquor seems as if something of venerable experience has been imparted: bold without flashiness, a warm waft of baking flour hits the nostrils while the tongue receives gradually more intense doses of savory shiitake mushroom and bitter cacao. Its full name, 'Spring Creek Flowing over a Rock', is not only reflected in the bing's charming wrapper, but is a kind of kenning for 'beauty'—perhaps what such a tea encourages one to perceive.