Earliest green tea of 2010 - Frosty Spring Yunnan Roast Green

I’ve been to Yunnan only once, but I am very sure it’s one of my favorite Chinese provinces, top 3, at least. It’s the most diverse province of China, ethnically, culturally, geographically, geologically, and tea-wise. Yunnan is where human beings first ever discovered, harvested and made tea.

The subtropical region of Yunnan has a winter warm enough for tea trees to grow, but cold enough to slow down the growing process with frequent frost. After a whole winter of bright sunshine and frosty nights, the spring tea leaves are extremely fresh and flavorful. Among thousands of Chinese green tea varietals, Yunnan green has never been very famous. This is not surprising, if consider in the old days how difficult it was to transport green tea out of mountainous Yunnan. Even the Mandarin emperors didn’t have the luck we have today, to sip the freshness of early spring Yunnan green in February! Actually, you could have it in January if you wish, thanks to modern transportation. 

This tea, Frosty Spring Yunnan Roast Green, is from a renowned small tea factory in Yunnan, Guan Zi Zai. The factory is famous as a small producer of high quality puerh. The tea is made with leaves from large-leaf tea cultivar, the same tea tree type for puerh.

This tea is the earliest green tea of 2010. Earliest, no exaggeration! The tea was harvested on the morning of January 1, 2010 in Xi Shuang Ban Na, Yunnan, China. It was processed on the same day till late night. Fine leaves were selected and packaged on January 2, 2010. Ha ha, I don’t think any other tea can beat it on time. Oh well, I am sure the tea trees were ready to be harvested on Dec. 31, 2009. But then it wouldn’t have been a 2010 tea. Chinese people love to see meanings in numbers. It sounds so cool to harvest on a new tea on the first day of a new year!

I’ve been drinking this tea all day today. I’ve started sending out samples for people to taste, and won’t describe too much of the tastes here (besides “it rocks” haha) so as not to affect people’s mind before they taste it themselves. I’ve set aside some samples for fellow bloggers. Please see recent events for blogger free sample information (you will need to scroll down to the bottom of the linked page).