ZI RAN RED | black

ZI RAN RED is an unsmoked zhengshan xiaozhong—or, lapsang souchong—production from Tongmu, Fujian province, China. Like ZI RAN SMOKE, this lot comes to us from Zi Ran Hong, a centuries-old smokehouse about 4 hours from Wuyi national park. For this production, the smokehouse, or qing lou ("green house", where lapsang is smoked with pine wood) was irrelevant; this is a modernist unsmoked lot. Save the smoking, this hong cha ("red tea") is produced identically to its smoked cousin: hand-plucked from wild-growing xingcun xiaozhong cultivar trees, withered, hand-rolled in cloth, and left to oxidize fully in bamboo baskets with no yaoxing ("shaking"—a process that accelerates oxidation). Tongmuguan, where ZI RAN HONG has operated for 3 generations, has been a protected UNESCO site since 1979. The pine forests are nationally protected, with imposed limits on how much can be harvested. All the land in Tongmu is accounted for by long-time residents—Zi Ran Hong is in its third generation of tea