Bingdao Dijie initial thoughts

Tree grade: 50-70 year old trees

Sub region: Dijie Year: 2025

One of the most famous / expensive regions. This tea is from the terraced farms of Dijie sub-region. The farmer I talked had character and claimed his tea from his terraced old trees are better than most “ancient” bingdao trees on the market. I thought this was a neat to put it, I mean afterall this area is the most famous and most faked, with many vendors faking their ancient bingdao cakes with either small trees or old trees. Something notable was his farm had an irregular terrace and trees were scattered around everywhere whith some weeds growing around them, so it’s clear they can’t harvested via machines.

Taste: In my initial brew I didn’t put enough leaves as Bingdao is a more softer tea. I fixed this by leaving the tea to brew slightly longer and you can definitely feel the slight bitterness followed by sweetness. To be honest, after reading so much on Bingdao, I was surprised the sweetness wasn’t stronger since it’s widely marketed as “rock sugar” sweetness.

When brewing this “Grandpa” style, you can definitely taste some bitterness, but it does fade rather quickly. Low astringency. Not overly complexed - lasting sweetness and medium cha qi.

At the end of the day, this tea definitely punches above it’s weight class. It’s marketed as containing no ancient tree leaves but definitely has an excellent flavor profile and character.