Amgalan Chin’s journey to Jingmai’s ancient groves
In March 2023, Amgalan Chin traveled to Jingmai Mountain in southern Yunnan, drawn by its UNESCO-recognized ancient tea forests and the unique character of its old-tree sheng. For Amgalan — a cross-regional tea master who grew up with Russian caravan traditions and Mongolian brick tea — Jingmai represents a puzzle of terroir and tradition that transcends borders. Working with a Hani family he has known for years, Amgalan spent days walking the misty slopes, selecting plots where 100–200-year-old tea trees grow without pesticides under a canopy of camphor and wild bamboo. The spring flush was hand-picked in early April, when the leaves are thick with oils and the weather is dry enough to allow ideal sun-drying. The family processed the leaves the same day: careful withering, quick pan-firing to halt oxidation, rolling by hand, and spreading on bamboo trays under the Yunnan sun. The resulting maocha was lightly stone-pressed into 357g cakes in a small, family-run workshop, preserving a subtle texture that Amgalan prizes for aging. He sees this 2023 cake as a snapshot of a pristine terroir at a moment of perfect spring energy — a tea that will evolve gracefully in a home cellar. Amgalan cellars the cakes in a clean, dry Kunming warehouse until they are ready to ship, and he monitors their progress as part of his broader research on how different storage climates influence sheng’s transformation. For him, this cake is both a delicious drink now and a promise for the decades ahead.