From the old tea routes to a modern cellar
Amgalan Chin’s path to this collection winds along the ancient tea-horse road, where he first tasted sheng pu’er in a Lhasa teahouse and later traced the brick tea caravans north into Siberia and Mongolia. That cross-regional lens — balancing the dry cold of the steppe with the humid age of Yunnan — defines his approach to curation and aging.Over fifteen years, he built relationships with smallholders around Bulang, Yiwu, and Lincang, returning each spring to select maocha destined for his cellar. This starter set is his personal syllabus: a ten-year sheng to show early transformation, a twenty-year to reveal the silkiness of deep time, a shou as the grounding force, a regional flight that maps terroir, and a vertical to witness one leaf across seasons. Each cake was stored in his naturally ventilated Guangzhou warehouse before being pressed and wrapped.For Amgalan, a collection begins not with rarity but with understanding the dialogue between leaf, microbe, and years. The set is an invitation to listen.