home / teas / Pu-erh tea
Pu-erh · Yunnan
Lao Cha Tou
老茶头
"Old tea heads" — the dense nuggets that form naturally during ripe pu-erh fermentation, where leaf clumps and sticks together. Rich, sweet and astonishingly long-lasting in the pot.
- Region
- Yunnan — 800–2000 m
- Harvest
- Clumps gathered during shou fermentation, then aged
- Oxidation
- Post-fermented (ripe / shou)
- Cultivar
- Yunnan broad-leaf (assamica)
In the cup
Deep and sweet — dark caramel, dried date and a smooth, syrupy body, even mellower than ordinary shou.
What it gives
A warming, grounding cup — smooth, sweet and gentle on the stomach, with the settling character of ripe pu-erh.
Lao Cha Tou — old tea heads — are an accident turned delicacy. During the wo dui fermentation of ripe pu-erh, the pectins in the leaf grow sticky and some of it clumps together into dense little nuggets that the pile-turners set aside. Once a humble by-product, these “tea heads” are now sought out in their own right.
Because the nuggets are so tightly bound, they release slowly and evenly, giving a cup that is richer, sweeter and more syrupy than loose shou, and remarkably enduring — they will keep brewing long after ordinary leaf has faded. Age smooths them further.
In the cup
Rinse the nuggets, then brew hot — they take full boiling — with steeps a touch longer than loose shou, since they open slowly. The liquor is dark and glossy, deep and sweet, with dark caramel and dried date over a smooth, syrupy body. A single portion will give twenty steeps and more.
How to brew
Lao Cha Tou
Water
95–100 °C
Leaf
7 g per 100 ml
Steep
Rinse, then 15–30 s, 20+ steeps
Vessel
Clay pot or gaiwan; nuggets take boiling
More from this class
