‘Labyrinth’ is a full-fat raw pu-erh tea at an easy price for hard times.
The tea is a mixture of 2022 and 2023 spring maocha we banked up from some of our favourite dank little nooks of undervalued tea forest across southern Yunnan. The tea is fairly punchy and strong; approachable potency without straining your budget. The material comes from clean, biodiverse growing environments, and will reward you steep to steep through a journey from initial pleasant bitterness that transforms into lingering sweetness.
If you're just starting out or interested in exploring what makes raw pu-erh tea worthwhile, we recommend this one. If you're already knee-deep and need a reliable companion to match your drinking pace or aging aspirations, 'Labyrinth' is a worthwhile investment.
Wrapper artwork by Jon Marshall.
In Soft Focus:
Clear clarion call opening, friendly astringency akin to yellow cedar - the sauna is an oven, anticipating water on the rocks. Less so floral than waxy - - sugar minus sucrose, hardly molasses but a kind of compacted resin rendered from where sugar was, or will be. Equal parts thick and slick, powerful persistence on the tongue. A hint of can this ever end? Hope.... not....Cactus, aloe, gatorade. Minerality like an avalanche, white pomace in a silent cascade.
