{"title":"Yinji","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eYinji is a well-established tea brand and factory on the edge of Mengku town. It is a \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lahu_people\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLahu\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e family business founded in 1995 and handed over to the second generation, Li Shiyuan and A Jian in 2020. A Jian is a cigar enjoyer who’s been processing since he was a teen, while Li Shiyuan enjoys photography and runs a cafe with coffee sourced from around Mengku. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eYinji has been focusing on high-end puerh tea since the year 2000 and the aim of this new generation is to keep the bar as high. As Li Shiyuan said, “I only want to make tea purely from old-growth trees in the best core producing areas”. Yinji specializes in Mengku-area puerh and they own a number of plots in the region: ~100 mu principally in Nuowu, Xiaohusai, and Xiaohuangtian. Beyond what they own, they lease around ten times as much land and source from dozens of producers across Lincang and beyond.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhile they whitelabel a significant amount of tea, their own brand is focused on older trees. In fact, they have streamlined their operations for the production of danzhu tea: every ancient tree has its own file (age, height, crown, trunk, coordinates, altitude, photographs, and so on) readable off a QR code, and they have a quite large and modern tea factory to enable many different batches to be processed in parallel. Ironically, they are rather low-tech when it comes to tea production: the plots are left to their own devices outside of harvest, while the leaves meticulously processed to age well.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHow did they come to know Blue Hat? That’s a longer story involving a knocking on a single door obsessively even though there were many other around, but that’s for another time. What matters is, like Guniangzhai 42[link], their emphasis the good stuff: Li Shiyuan and A Jian have bet on quality and you can try the result for yourself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"2026-xiaohuangtian","title":"2026 Xiaohuangtian","description":"\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e200-300 year old trees\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e2026 Spring first pick\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\n\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003cspan\u003eProduced by \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/blue-hat-tea.com\/pages\/partners\/yinji\" title=\"Blue Hat Tea | Yinji\"\u003eYinji\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eToo much Huangpian, sold at cost\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWrapper design by \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/moriz.work\" title=\"https:\/\/moriz.work\" target=\"_blank\"\u003emoriz.work\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/blue-hat-tea.com\/pages\/partners\/yinji\" title=\"Blue Hat Tea | Yinji\"\u003eYinji\u003c\/a\u003e has been sourcing teas from Xiaohuangtian for over twenty five years and they made this tea from 200-300 year old trees across their two plots in the village. The trees are scattered through the forest, which is weeded and harvested once a year in spring. This tea comes from the first (and only) harvest in spring.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eXiaohuangtian is an isolated environment: it has never had electricity, it has been uninhabited since 2018 when it got its first road (which remains unpaved). It is in the middle of the mountains surrounded by forest over the ridge from \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/blue-hat-tea.com\/products\/2026-nuowu\" title=\"Blue Hat Tea | Nuowu\"\u003eNuowu\u003c\/a\u003e. In fact, it is the most remote tea village on Dongbanshan.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eXiaohuangtian shares less in common with typical Dongbanshan teas to the south (Zhengqitang, Baihuashu, Banuo) and more in common with Bingdao teas to the north: it is sweet, clear, and complex. In comparison with nearby \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/blue-hat-tea.com\/products\/2026-nuowu\" title=\"Blue Hat Tea | Nuowu\"\u003eNuowu\u003c\/a\u003e, Xiaohuangtian has lower astringency and bitterness while retaining depth, thickness and fragrance (flowers and wet forest). Xiaohuangtian feels like an Yiwu tea, in contrast to the more Menghai-coded \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/blue-hat-tea.com\/products\/2026-nuowu\" title=\"Blue Hat Tea | Nuowu\"\u003eNuowu\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis year's Xiaohuangtian was picked too late and, as a result, the leaves are a bit too big and there's a bit too much huangpian. While concealing this information is not an option, holding back the tea is not a good option either: it remains tasty and interesting. Instead, it is offered at cost.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Blue Hat Tea","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57269186888005,"sku":null,"price":100.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1014\/8364\/3205\/files\/Xiaohuangtian.png?v=1779367862"},{"product_id":"2026-nuowu","title":"2026 Nuowu","description":"\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli dir=\"ltr\"\u003e200-500 year old trees\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e2026 Spring first pick\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\n\u003cspan\u003eProduced by \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/blue-hat-tea.com\/pages\/partners\/yinji\" title=\"Blue Hat Tea | Yinji\"\u003eYinji\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWrapper design by \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/moriz.work\" title=\"https:\/\/moriz.work\" target=\"_blank\"\u003emoriz.work\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/blue-hat-tea.com\/pages\/partners\/yinji\" title=\"Blue Hat Tea | Yinji\"\u003eYinji\u003c\/a\u003e made this tea from 200 to 500 year old \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003etrees from their four plots in Nuowu. Together these four plots have many hundreds of trees this old, a few even older, nearly two hundred fifty of which are processed individually as danzhu. The gardens are low-intervention and are only weeded to clear the way for the harvest. There are two harvests, one in the spring and one in the fall, and this tea comes from the first (and only) spring picking.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNuowu is a Lahu village and the southernmost of the five Bingdao villages. It sits on Dongbanshan just northeast of the Bingdao lake. Like some other Bingdao teas, Nuowu is quite sweet. Unlike some other Bingdao teas, it has an engaging bite: it’s thick, with stimulating bitterness, minerality, and wild forrest fragrance.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTogether with \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/blue-hat-tea.com\/products\/2026-xiaohuangtian\" title=\"Blue Hat Tea | Xiaohuangtian\"\u003eXiaohuangtian\u003c\/a\u003e, the teas show two different sides of Dongbanshan. While Nuowu has a wildness and bite like some Menghai teas, \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/blue-hat-tea.com\/products\/2026-xiaohuangtian\" title=\"Blue Hat Tea | Xiaohuangtian\"\u003eXiaohuangtian\u003c\/a\u003e more closely resembles Yiwu: low-astringency and low-bitterness and with high sweetness and depth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Blue Hat Tea","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57269189378373,"sku":null,"price":150.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1014\/8364\/3205\/files\/Nuowu.png?v=1779367862"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1014\/8364\/3205\/collections\/yinji_transparent.png?v=1787161018","url":"https:\/\/blue-hat-tea.com\/collections\/yinji.oembed","provider":"Blue Hat Tea","version":"1.0","type":"link"}