Summit brand Pu Er tea is founded by Pu Er tea experts and enthusiasts in Guangzhou.  The Summit tea team are dedicated to offering the pure, big-leaf pu-erh tea from big-arbor pu-erh trees with recipes that are formulated from tea originating from a single mountain.  In addition, the Summit Tea Company endeavors to educate tea lovers about the distinguishing tastes of pu-erh tea from each individual tea mountain. The Summit Tea Company decided to create these teas because it is extremely hard to find old-arbor, big-tree pu-erh teas originating from a single mountain in the existing tea market. Instead, there are many factories claiming their pu-erh tea offerings are from old-arbor trees from a single mountain but the tea is actually a blend of the leaves from the several nearby mountains.  Or, the tea may be a blend of old arbor trees and bush tea in order to keep the cost down. 

Each year, during the spring tea harvest times, the Summit Tea team travels extensively in the mountains and stays there for about two months.  During that time, they taste each of the teas from individual villages and farmers and then select the best ones. That is why the Summit Tea Company cannot guarantee teas are the exactly the same from year to year.  However, they do guarantee that they will be the highest quality available.  In addition, due to the highly selective process, the Summit Tea Company does not guarantee huge quantities will be produced. 

All Summit Tea Company pu-erh tea is carefully selected by the tasting team and is processed using traditional stones to ensure the teas have a perfect compression for ideal post-fermentation to occur.  After you taste the Summit Tea Comany's raw Pu Er tea, you will have an excellent appreciation of some of the finest, true big-arbor pu-erh tea available and will get a true sense of the different flavor profiles presented based on the tea mountain where the tea originates.

Purple-bud (紫芽) pu-erh tea is from Wenshan village (文山) in Jinggu (景谷) county in Yunnan province, where the mountain altitude is over 2000 meters.

Purple-bud pu-erh tea is made from the tender single bud of the wild, purple-bud pu-erh tea trees maocha.  This tea is called three-color tea; this means the fresh buds on the tea trees are purple, the dried tea is shiny dark, and the infused tea leaves are green for the first one or two years. The purple-bud Pu Er tea tree is actually a rare tea tree variety in the Yunnan large-leaf tea trees and is famous for its high health benefits, high percentage of anthocyanidins, and amino acids, particularly tea polyphenols.

Currently, there is still no road that a car can navigate to this Wenshan village. The Summit tea team needs to walk about 3 hours to reach this remote village. The spring yield of purple-bud is tea is extremely low, around 50 kgs. The Summit team has to buy partial kilos from various farmers to collect enough fine tea for a reasonable production.  Given this, collecting the maocha from the farmers is quite an adventure.  After gathering a sufficient quantity of purple-bud maocha, the tea is pressed by traditional stone, which is good for the future storage, and quickens the process of aging.

In the current pu-erh tea market, there are many fake purple-bud pu-erh teas. Many tea merchants use the Zijuan (紫娟) or Zicha (紫茶 purple tea) maocha and market them as pure, purple-bud pu-erh tea to increase their profit margins at the expense of the consumer.  The difference between purple-bud, Zijuan and Zicha lies in the shape, fragrance, taste.  But the easiest way to tell the difference is by the particular tea leaf shape.  Purple-bud tea has no tea hair or tea leaf saw on both sides of the leaf; the Zijuan and Zicha do not share these leaf characteristics.

This tea is an outstanding candidate for long-term storage. If the tea is aged for about 5 years, it will already start to demonstrate an aged aroma, sweet and thick taste.

Tea tree: Purple bud big leaves pu-erh tea trees from Wenshan village, Jinggu county, Yunnan province

Harvest time: 2009 spring

Picking standard: One bud

Shape: Tight, fat, plump.

Dried tea color: Shiny dark, bloom

Aroma: high wild flowery, and honey fragrance

Tea soup color: shiny golden yellow

Taste: flowery and honey taste, strong throat feeling, smooth tea soup

Brewing vessel: Recommended Gaiwan; glass cup (another option)

Brewing guidelines:

i) Gaiwan infusions: 5-7 grams per time (based on personal taste); the first several infusion is 90C degree or 190F for about 10 seconds; then the later infusions should be about 15-20 seconds.

In addition, recommend that you pour the water around the edge of Gaiwan to avoid burning the tender tea buds; don’t pour the hot water on the tea leaves directly.

ii) Glass cup infusions: 2-3 grams per time. the first two infusion is 90C degree or 190F for about 1 minute; then the later infusions may require aobut 3-4 minutes.

Number of infusions:

i) Gaiwan: around 8-12 times  
  
ii) Glass cup: 4-6 times