The Jiang Family of Tongmuguan
Every red tea Baoputang sources from Wuyishan comes from one family. Jiang Yuanfang is one of 24 generations of tea masters from Tongmuguan — the valley where lapsang souchong itself was invented, more than 400 years ago. We've now worked with him for ten years.
Over that decade, he's made four custom blends for Baoputang, each a different facet of the same family's repertoire rather than one tea sold four ways: 野茶 (wild tea), 紫笋 (Zisun), a traditionally pine-smoked old-bush red, and 小赤甘 — Xiao Chi Gan.
Xiao Chi Gan is the one worth slowing down on. Before Jin Jun Mei existed, red tea here was simply graded by how much leaf went in: one bud and one leaf made 大赤甘 — Da Chi Gan — one bud and two or three leaves made 小赤甘. 赤 means red, 甘 means sweet; the name describes the cup, not a place or a grade. There's an old saying about it: you can drink a thousand cups of red tea and still not know what you were missing, if you've never had Xiao Chi Gan.
Ten years in, this isn't a sourcing arrangement that gets renewed each season. It's a family's tea, available to us because we asked — and because we kept asking.