Sister Ai’s “Seven Cakes” Tong Sampler
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Hand wrapped in traditional bamboo packaging, these “tongs” feature seven unique flavors of tea, all grown by Sister Ai and her family on their tea mountains in Yunnan.
THE TEAS
Each tong contains 1 coin/cake of:
Sister Ai’s Black Beauty: Explosively fruity, juicy, and created by a novel production technique combining aspects of raw pu’er, red tea, and white tea production.
Thousand-Year Tree Wild Red Tea: Top-grade leaves from wild tea trees 1000 years old, harvested from a nature reserve in the mountains of Qianjiazhai.
Sister Ai’s Everyday Shou Pu’er: Rich, earthy, and easy drinking, this tea is as dark as coffee and has the classic funk of a post-fermented “cooked” pu’er.
Sister Ai’s Everyday Ancient Tree White Tea: Sweet, clean, fresh, this white tea is a great introduction to Yunnan whites.
Sister Ai’s Everyday Ancient Tree Sheng Pu’er: The classic energizing raw pu’er from Sister Ai, with notes of lemon citrus, innervating tannins, and classic floral scent.
Sister Ai’s Everyday Golden Pu’er: Lighter, sweeter, and with less tannins than normal raw pu’er, this is a great tea for people who want pep and energy but may dislike the intensity of normal raw pu’er.
Sister Ai’s Everyday Ancient Tree Red Tea: Super classic “black tea” flavor that will blow your Earl Greys and English Breakfasts out of the water.
Two Sizes
Select your size from the drop-down menu above:
Mini-Tong Sampler: 7 x 7g tea coins (~50g)
Full Tong Sampler: 7 x 50g tea cakes (350g)
Jesse Explains:
Sister Ai’s Qi Zi Bing “Seven Cakes” Tong
Sister Ai is a 4th gen tea farmer who we collaborate with to make this “seven cakes” series.
In the ancient days of the Tea Horse Road trading route, loose leaf tea was pressed into discs and then wrapped in bamboo leaves in stacks of seven 357g tea cakes.
These wrapped packages, known as “Tongs”, were the basic unit of tea trade in Yunnan for hundreds of years. Tongs are still available in China today, if you work directly with the farmers.
I’ve always wanted to sell tongs, but most people don’t need 2 kilos of one type of tea. So while we’re sticking to tradition by putting seven cakes in each traditional hand-wrapped tong, I’ve put seven different teas in each tong, all from Sister Ai and her family’s mountains.
I’ve also made the sizes a bit more consumer-friendly, with 7 x 7g mini-tongs and 7 x 50g full tongs. Try a mini-tong to get the whole range of flavors, or the full tong as a mega-sampler for both value and variety.
All seven of the Qi Zi Bing “Seven Cakes” series are available as individual 50g cakes as well, so you can always come back for your favorites.
VALUE AND QUALITY
Jesse's Teahouse started because Jesse realized the quality and value of the tea directly from China was so much higher than what could be easily found in the States -- and around the world.
Jesse contacted his tea friends, they shipped their best teas to him, and he sends them to you. That's it!
These teas are high quality and can be re-steeped multiple times! Each session makes between 4-8 cups of tea, so at around $.50 a cup, you get top quality Chinese teas at a price that you can enjoy every day.
NOT JUST TEA, TEA CULTURE
Jesse believes the key to making good tea is to help his Chinese tea friends share not just their best teas, but the best ways to make the teas.
That's why each box comes also comes with an info card that tells you:
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Tea Origin
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Steep Temperature
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Steep Time
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Directions for both teapot steeping and gaiwan steeping
All Jesse’s Teahouse Tea Friends (that’s you now!) also get access to private YouTube videos where Jesse and his Chinese tea friends show you how to make the teas and explain the tea-making process.
The links are on QR codes on the back of the info card included in the tea box.
Don't Forget Your Tea Pets!
In Chinese Gongfu Tea Tradition, Tea Pets accompany you at teatime and you "raise" them by feeding them tea! Check out the tea pets at the bottom of this page.