Uncle Iroh - Lao Sheng Pu-erh 1988

€20,00

Taxes included.

Clear Focus
Aged Sheng Pu-erh
Medium caffeine

Aged wood • Old books • Camphor • Dry earth • Honey

Some people make you feel wiser simply by sitting beside them.

Size 25g 50g 100g cake (300g)

about 10 mugs or 5 gongfu sessions

This tea has spent more than thirty-five years learning patience. Time has softened its edges, leaving behind notes of aged wood, camphor, and quiet sweetness. Like the best mentors, it never tells you what to do, but creates the space where your own answers can appear.

The ritual (Gongfu Cha):
bring fresh, soft water to 90–95°C. Gently break off 5-6 grams of this historic cake per 100 ml into a seasoned Yixing clay teapot or a clean porcelain gaiwan. Give the compressed vintage leaves a slow, respectful hot rinse to awaken their deep slumber, discarding the first water. For your first true infusion, steep for 15 seconds, lengthening the time gradually across later rounds. Sip slowly and watch the tea gracefully unfold its ancient armor over 10–12 magnificent infusions, shifting from rich, library-like wood notes into a sweet, breezy camphor landscape.

The ancient pot (Lu Yu Style):
for a deeply meditative, slow-paced ritual, treat this vintage with historic reverence. Bring 300-400 ml of soft water to a gentle, quiet simmer (90–95°C) in a heatproof ceramic or glass stovetop pot. Drop 4–5 grams of the vintage leaves directly into the water as it starts to bubble. Turn the heat down to the absolute lowest setting and let the leaves gently cook and dance for 2–3 minutes before turning off the fire. Let it rest for another minute to let the leaves settle to the bottom.

This method mimics the oldest tea preparation traditions, extracting a thick, smooth, and deeply heartwarming liquor that carries an intensely grounded, ancient forest energy.

Body: smooth, rounded, and completely devoid of bitterness. It fills the mouth with a thick, dense texture that somehow feels effortlessly light and expansive.

Liquor: deep, dark amber-red, holding a radiant clarity that speaks to decades of clean maturation.

Finish: long, clean, and meditative aftertaste that leaves a distinct, cooling menthol sensation in the throat.

Uncle Iroh is a timeless masterclass in the beauty of patient, natural post-fermentation.

After its harvest in 1988, the raw green leaves underwent the standard Sheng Pu-erh path: they were briefly sun-withered, pan-fired to pause immediate oxidation, rolled, and dried. The leaf was then left completely alone to age naturally across the decades.

Over more than 35 years of quiet storage, the raw, bitter catechins have slowly and naturally restructured into complex, soothing polyphenols. This effortless elemental shift is exactly what "quieted" the tea's youth, stripping away all harshness and breathing that cooling camphor soul into the dark leaves.

This ultra-rare large-leaf assamica tea was hand-harvested from ancient high-altitude forest trees (Gu Shu) in Yunnan back in the late 1980s.

In the tea world, a well-aged Lao Sheng (老生) is revered as a living archive -a slow-moving timeline that carries the weather, soil, and silent history of the past decades within its cells. Teas from this era are exceptionally scarce, held in the same prestige as a legendary, dust-covered vintage wine. Pressed into a 300g cake over 35 years ago, this tea stands as a rare monument to time itself.

This particular vintage is best enjoyed entirely on its own. As one of our most precious and ritualistic teas, we highly suggest serving it as an isolated experience rather than a companion to food. Let its layered, multi-decade history be the sole focus of your evening.

The absolute warmth of someone who has seen it all. It carries the steady peace of an old tree standing completely still amidst a changing world. It offers a state of profound physical grounding, luminous inner silence, and introspective clarity.

Before water. After water.

When to drink:

Dedicated personal rituals, silent meditations, attentive no chit-chat meetings, or moments of slow, quiet introspection when you are looking to disconnect from the noise of modern life and connect directly with time.