Shiny Popo Shu Pu-erh | dark tea

Shiny Popo was created by tea maker with a straightforward purpose: to produce a carefully made, high-quality ripe Pu-erh that remains approachable enough for everyday drinking. Its playful name was chosen by the maker and is not a traditional tea category or mountain name.

The liquor is bright red-brown, smooth, and gently sweet, with soft dried-fruit tones, warm woodiness, and a clean finish. It is mellow without feeling flat or overly earthy, making it an easy introduction to ripe Pu-erh as well as a reliable tea for regular drinking.

The tea was harvested in April 2023 at approximately 2,500 metres on Mengku Daxueshan in western Yunnan. It is made from the Mengku large-leaf cultivar, a traditional local tea variety valued for its rich inner substance and suitability for producing Pu-erh tea.

After harvesting, the leaves were withered indoors, kill-greened, rolled, and sun-dried to produce shaiqing maocha — the traditional raw material used for Pu-erh. The tea then underwent controlled post-fermentation and drying, transforming the strength of the original leaf into a softer, deeper, and more rounded expression.

Mengku Daxueshan is an important landscape in the history and study of tea. Its upper slopes preserve a protected wild tea-tree community covering approximately 12,700 mu, distributed between 2,200 and 2,750 metres. These protected trees are not harvested for commercial tea, but their presence reflects the remarkable botanical diversity and long tea lineage of the region.

Profile: Gentle sweetness, Soft dried fruit, Warm wood, Rounded texture, Clean finish
Cultivar: Mengku Large-Leaf
Origin: Mengku Daxueshan, Shuangjiang County, Lincang, Yunnan, China
Elevation: 2,500 m
Harvest: April 2023
Tea Maker: Huang Shihai
Brewing suggestion: 100 °C | 5–10 s