Tea is life — in every steep, a lesson; in every cup, a practice.
Duoyishu is a micro-region of real standing on the edge of Yiwu, named after a fruit tree the locals call “duo yi.” The ancient tea gardens here hide inside primeval forest, and their specialty is the “tall-stem” ancient tree: not a low, rounded bush but a tree with a straight trunk rising several — even a dozen — metres, its leaf crowning the top, harvested by climbers. Tall-stem ancients are deep-rooted and full-bodied, drawing on a century of the forest’s essence; the tea is thick and the vitality strong, a rare resource the trade has come to prize.
The signature of Anle Hao’s 2023 Duoyishu Tall-Stem is the thickness of the liquor: on entry it is dense and slick, with a broth-like, silken body; sweet and settled, the mountain vitality strong without harshness, and a throat resonance deep and lasting. Much of a tall-stem tree’s quality comes from its roots: rooted deep, it draws enough nourishment for a grand frame. When I open this cake with friends I say little — the word “thick” says it all. Thick without heaviness, smooth with a spine: that is the bearing only a tall-stem ancient can give.
Harvesting is genuinely difficult: one tree often needs its own climber, and a whole year yields only tens of kilograms of fresh leaf. In making Duoyishu Tall-Stem, Anle Hao continues its long-standing rules with the mountain farmers — pick with restraint, quota by tree, process each batch separately. The Li family has made tea for two hundred years and understands a plain truth: the mountain is heaven’s, the rules are your own — and you shortchange neither. When this batch entered the cellar, I set aside several cakes to age alongside the 2023 Mangsheqing and Mao Er Duo, so that one day we can compare how three micro-regions transform. That comparison will be fascinating.
For wellness, tall-stem ancient tree tea is rich in substance and almost filling to drink, and it endures infusion after infusion — one brew can accompany half a day. My own experience is a word: steadiness. The tea’s energy is full without scattering; it wakes the mind without agitating it — well suited to long hours of thought or moments that call for composure. In the primeval forest, tall stems reach for the sky: this cake is like an elder standing among the trees, needing no words, carrying a settled strength of its own.
Tea has grades, but no one is barred from the table.
Why are tall-stem ancients so rare? Begin with the ecology of the forest. In a pruned plantation the trees are cut and managed low, easy to pick but limited in vigour. A tall-stem ancient in primeval forest competes with giants for light: fail to grow upward and it is shaded to death — so each tree rises higher and roots deeper, woven into the ecology of the whole forest. Such wild, free-growing tea yields little, but the thickness and depth of its liquor are hard for plantation tea to approach. The area around Duoyishu is exactly where tall-stem ancients survive most completely.
At a tea gathering I once ran a small experiment: one table, a tall-stem ancient and an ordinary ancient opened together, no names shown — a blind tasting. Of eight tea friends, seven pointed to the same cup as “thicker, sweeter, longer-lasting.” The tall-stem won clearly. A young guest asked me why, and I answered with a bowl of soup: with the same ingredients, a slow-simmered broth and a quick one differ in body. The decades of deep roots in a tall-stem ancient are its slow simmer. Anle Hao’s 2023 Duoyishu Tall-Stem deserves to be tasted with exactly that seriousness.
Tall-stem tea endures — a dozen infusions and the flavour still holds — so I suggest drinking it as a “long sitting”: one unhurried afternoon, from the first pour to the final water, watching it change as it goes — thick at the opening, sweet in the middle, clear at the close, like a book read from first page to last. Life rushes; we seldom finish anything slowly, end to end. One sitting of tall-stem tea gives yourself a complete afternoon. That completeness is how tea nurtures the heart.
Friends through tea — please, join the cup.
Author: LamSam (老茶頭·林燊)
ZENTEA MANOR 禪茶莊園
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