A truly special shu pu’er endowed with the additional breadth of a bamboo sheath. Once the fermented tea leaves are packed into the fresh bamboo cutting, the compact tuboid is roasted over an open flame before being stored. This one, prepared in 2015, has had a good seven years of dry storage giving the leaves an exquisite saturation of bamboo flavors. Sweet and gentle, the impression is a dry ravine, fresh soil and autumn foliage folding into the underbelly of its taut and creamy mouthfeel. It gives itself generously, brew by brew, and its complex yet clean flavor is absent of those headier, funkier notes of post-fermentation usual to shu pu'er, inviting tea lovers yet to acquire the taste to dip their toes in. Indeed, this tea is beyond compare and rather invigorating too, the kind one would choose for long and meditative musings with a friend or two.