Farmerleaf 2025 Tang Fang Liang Zi Single Trees / Forest tea from Western Jinggu

Farmerleaf tea does not need any introduction. I believe there are only few who wouldn't know William Osmont and his wife Yubai. William's videos are legendary, they belong to my most favourite to watch. When I am in the mood, I put them on repeat and it always surprises me how much I can learn from them again and again.

Deep in 2014 (based on my ordering history) I was still a student looking for affordable puerh available within the EU, at that time I discovered Bannacha, William's first France based brand. Being still a student, I used to buy the cheapest Autumn Wuliangshan 357g cakes and this way I was able to maintain my low budget resource for the whole year. 

Ten years later in February 2024 at the Prague Tea Festival I met William and Yubai in person and was pleasantly surprised they remembered my name (the photo above is from that event). I am sure starting tea business is not an easy endeavour and every regular customer is a welcomed asset!

Every spring I am curious about new Farmerleaf's offer as I very much enjoy sampling their tea throughout the year. I like their processing style as well as their broad scope, offering tea from various terroirs. It gives us, their customers, greater choice in adding to our experience in discovering puerh from other parts of Yunnan that are not always easy to get, such as 2024 Bakanoy, one of my favourite samples from last year that made me buy a whole cake.

This year Farmerleaf collected incredibly wide offer which makes the choice a bit more difficult to make! However, choosing tea samples for today's session was quite easy as the tea chose me.

When searching through Farmerleaf's spring cakes, Jons - my dear friend in tea, read about certain "introverted tea". However, she didn't remember what tea it was. At that time I was finishing 2024 Tang Fang Liang Zi Single Trees sample and was surprised how well it developed within a year. Out of curiosity I looked the tea up and saw as well its younger 2025 regular production version (I am not sure if it actually is xiaoshu or mixed picking from forested tea gardens, based on the price tag I would say the first). 

I clicked to read the description and found the "introverted tea" Jons mentioned. I was hesitant to buy a sample as my interest this year went solely to sample single trees so in the end I didn't purchase it. Nevertheless, upon receiving the parcel I saw that I was sent the regular version instead of the Single trees sample - what a strange coincidence - this tea really wanted to be reviewed! 

I shared the sample with Jons and we agreed on doing paralel independent tasting in our own way and style. Jons' tasting notes were already posted, you can read them here.  

In my tasting notes I decided to compare both of the 2025 Tang Fang Liang Zi Spring samples, Single trees and a much cheaper regular production cake from forest garden as I find them both  excellent and also quite different from each other.

I still remember the surprising feeling from this summer when retasting 2024 Tang Fang Liang Zi Single Trees sample, how sweet and fragrant yet very complex taste! It reminded me of one of the spring Wuliangshan cakes I purchased from Farmerleaf in 2014-2015. 

It is amazing to observe how powerful taste and smell can be - in an instant it brings back memories and sensations from far distant past! I very much enjoyed that old Wuliang cake and regretted not buying more as it sold out soon and none of its future versions came close to its previous processing style. I can’t say much about the similarity of the regions as I cannot compare the samples, the 2015 cake is long gone. Yet Jinggu and Wuliang mountains seem to be close to each other so perhaps the soil and surrounding ecosystem might have something to do with the similarity in taste and character of their maocha. 

Drinking 2025 Tang Fang Liang Zi from Western Jinggu makes me realize how sweet, fragrant and juicy young sheng puerh could be. To be honest, I am not a big fan of sweet tea. I must admit I often find it rather boring. This one, however, is anything but boring. 

I had a chance to sample most (maybe all) of 2025 Jinggu production on Farmerleaf's offer (together with Da Sun Shan) and was pleasantly surprised by their subtlety and complexity. The bitterness I usually appreciate in Menghai tea is missing here, so is astringency, yet the mouthfeel and huigan is persuasive enough to make me want another cup. It would be difficult to say which tea stands out as they all have something specific and unique.

But back to 2025 Tang Fang Liang Zi.

Based on the description on Farmerleaf website, the regular spring cake comes from Mr Dong's natural forested gardens, the age of the trees is not listed and the ecosystem of the forest is perhaps more important than the age of trees. As written in the description: 

"In a similar fashion as Eastern Yiwu or Northern Laos, these gardens are only accessible through small roads and can take a couple of hours to reach. This forest tea is of the same varietal as the commonly found Teng Tiao, but the ecosystem of the forest and the shade give the brew a special character. The tea has a soft and yet powerful tasting profile, with plenty of sweetness and a calming body feel. It’s a great tea to relax and meditate. "

I very much agree with this description - what a beautiful oxymoron - soft yet powerful! I do not find much similarity between Jinggu and Yiwu despite the fact that they both are considered to be sweet and fragrant. Based on my sampling experience, I would say that there is some similarity between Jinggu and Bangwai this year, none of them I found boring at all!

When comparing the 2025 samples (single trees vs regular forest tea production), I found them to be two different kinds of tea. The regular version is very approachable immediately with the first brew. It is fragrant, very active in the mouth, the salivation makes the tea very juicy and creates a pleasant and consistent mouthfeel over the whole session. You will not get a powerful huigan but if you are patient enough, the tea will speak to you through its relaxing Qi, one that I felt even more energizing than in the 2025 Single Trees sample.

The DanZhu (单株) version is a different kind of tea in many aspects. First of all, in my experience DanZhu often shows something unique from the terroir that doesn't have to necessarily be better or more tasty than regular mixed picking - it reveals something secret, a character that is distinctive and rare. Single Trees can therefore be more subtle in taste, less straightforward yet more intense and concentrated. 

When drinking Single Trees version of 2025 Tang Fang Liang Zi, the tea does not open as fast, it takes its time. It shares its quality slowly and the taste is much more dynamic. The salivation and huigan are more pronounced from the very first brew, as well as sweetness that comes immediately to the front. In later brews I could detect slowly appearing bitterness, a surprising element that revealed more "aggressive" character of Jinggu, one that is probably not very known. 

The bitterness is not very loud, it is rather fleeting and more in the background but it adds to the tea an aspect that you can sometimes find in young Jingmai gushu (for example Farmerleaf 2024 Jingmai Gulan was distinctively more bitter than its previous years, probably due to very dry weather and low yield which impacted the taste). 

I still struggle to depict the one specific aspect of Jinggu taste that I cannot find in other terroirs - there is something consistent in the back of the mouth and on the tongue that remains pleasantly present throughout the session and never changes - I would say it is the distinctive essence of Jinggu tea that cannot be found anywhere else, everything similar to it just "tastes like Jinggu". The undescribable distinctive character of this terroir will always spark curiosity within me about its next year's harvest.