• handmade item

• materials: big-leaved arbor tea leaves from the village of Mahei

• shape: cake

• dimension: diameter 18.5 cm / 7.28 in

• weight: 380 g / 13.40 oz

Handmade with tea leaves picked from Mahei village in the spring of 2011, this sheng pu-erh brews bright yellow liquor with a delicate taste and silky texture. The tea is full-bodied with minimal astringency and bitterness, and brings back a prolonged honey-like aftertaste.

The village of Mahei is located in the Yiwu tea mountain of Mengla county in Xishuangbanna autonomous prefecture. Yiwu is the biggest of the six great ancient tea mountains. The name means “the habitat of beautiful snake deity” in the local Dai language. The ancient Pu people started planting tea trees in the region as early as the Tang dynasty (618-907). Starting from the Qing dynasty, the ministry of tea in Pu’er city relaxed the monopolization of pu-erh tea industry which gave thousands of Han people the opportunity to enter into Yiwu and to renovate the ancient tea gardens and to expand the production capacity of pu-erh tea. By the end of Qing dynasty, the tea gardens stretched more than 100 km along the mountain ridges of Yiwu. The development of tea industry was so fast that new villages and tea gardens emerged everywhere. The large volume of tea traded and the ever-increasing demand for more quality pu-erh brought economic prosperity to the region. There were more than 50 households prior to 1935, however there are approximately 20 households left today. Majority of the villagers had moved out of Mahei due to the decline of tea industry during the war in the 1930-1940 period.