2010 Golden Needle White Lotus Ripe (Menghai Tea Factory)

The Golden Needle White Lotus (GNWL) series represent a line of premium ripe puerh produced by Menghai Tea Factory. The production can be traced back to the 1990s when GNWL was initially sold as loose leaf tea. This would later change in 2005 when the leaves were compressed into 200g mini teacakes. Subsequent years have seen the GNWL retain its compressed form with the size of the teacake being increased to the more standard 357g weight as represented by this 2010 version.

1990s Ying Kee (Old Tin Carton)

This tea was given to me by a friend over the weekend. It is an old tin carton containing loose leaf puerh tea from Ying Kee Tea House based in Hong Kong. The tea has been kept for what is believed to be well over 10 years… its history, original ownership, date of purchased, etc long forgotten with the passage of time. As my friend has a preference for other types of tea I became the fortunate recipient of this tea.