From Mengsong to the Siberian cellar
In spring 2014, a small family garden on Mengsong mountain — a place of high ridges and ancient tea trees — produced a batch of sheng that caught my attention. The leaves were picked from broad-leaf trees at around 1800 metres, processed with simple rigour in a village workshop, and pressed into 357g cakes. I acquired a dozen as part of a larger lot bound for my cellar in Buryatia, where the cold dry air of the Russian steppe slows fermentation to a crawl. Over ten years, the tea changed slowly: the young green bite mellowed into a fine mineral edge, and the aromas deepened without ever growing stale. I opened this cake in late 2024 and found a tea that speaks of its journey — bright as a Mengsong spring morning, yet thread with the austere clarity of a long northern winter. It is a sheng that rewards quiet attention, and a testament to how much place matters, both where the leaves grow and where they rest.