Description:

Liu An is packed into small bamboo baskets lined with bamboo leaf and left to mature, which is where it picks up its particular dry, woody edge. The liquor is dark but not heavy, with stewed plum, old timber and a faint medicinal note that Cantonese drinkers have long taken as a digestive. It has less body than a ripe Pu-erh and more length, holding on the palate well after the sip. Rinse it first, keep the water hot, and expect it to open up rather than fade over repeated steeps.