2024 Moon Garden White Tea Cake 200g

Origin & Production

This tea cake is crafted from tea leaves hand-picked in Spring 2024 from ancient tea trees near Dahusai village in Yunnan’s Lincang region (elevation: approx. 1800m).

After picking, the leaves were naturally sun-dried and stored loose until December. We prefer to age pu-erh tea leaves in their loose form for a specific period before pressing them into cakes. While this approach involves higher storage costs, it’s a worthy investment, enhancing their long-term aging potential of the tea.

In December 2024, the tea leaves were carefully steamed, pressed into cakes, and left to dry naturally at room temperature. Once dried, each cake is double-wrapped in two layers of paper. Finally, sets of five cakes are bundled together in an additional layer of paper and wrapped in dried bamboo sheets, safeguarding them from humidity, odors, and damage during transport.

Appearance, Taste & Aroma

Visually, this tea cake is a feast for the eyes. Once the ‘Moonlight White’ cultivar tea leaves are carefully wilted and dried, one side of the leaf showcases a rich dark hue, while the other displays a warm brown tone. These colors beautifully contrasts with the silver-colored, downy tea buds.

The deliberate selection of tea leaves with fewer buds was a conscious decision, resulting in a tea cake that offers a sweeter, creamier, full-bodied flavor, and complex aroma, while also benefiting its aging potential.

The endurance of this tea is remarkable, and as the tea cakes continue to age, their quality will only improve, becoming even more exquisite over time.

How to Prepare ‘Moon Garden’ White Tea.

You may use the below steeping parameters as a starting point:

• • Temperature: Whether you go for traditional or western brewing, we recommend a steeping temperature of 95ºC/200ºF. However, this white tea cake is also suitable for steeping at lower temperatures, if you prefer a more delicate taste.
  • Traditional steeping: 3-4g of tea. Steep for 10 seconds in 100ml water for the first 5 steeps, then gradually increase the steeping time.
  • Western brewing: 3-4g of tea. Steep in 500ml of water and apply a steeping time of 2 minutes for the first steep and 3 minutes for the second steep.
  • Cold brewing: This is one of the best teas you can use for cold brewing. Cold brew 7g of tea for 7 hours in the fridge with 1-1.5 litres of cold water.

Note: The tea cake is fairly tightly compressed. We therefore recommend also buying a tea knife, if you don’t have one yet.