Pu’er Tea — Ripe / Shou, from Bulang Mountain

This one comes from far outside our usual hills — from Bulang Mountain in Yunnan, one of the great pu’er regions of China, where the craft of fermenting tea goes back centuries.

Ripe (shou) pu’er is fully fermented, and it drinks like nothing else on this page: dark, smooth, and deeply earthy, with woody, mellow notes and no bitterness or astringency. It brews forgiving — hard to over-steep — and takes multiple infusions, each one a little different from the last. Traditionally the cup reached for after a heavy meal.

If you’ve only ever known black, green and orthodox, this is the leaf that shows you how wide the world of tea actually is.

Rinse the leaves once, then steep. Then steep again. And again.