June 2026 Tea Subscription

Thank you for coming onboard Parchmen & Co and travel with us to savour our world in a cup!

We aim to bring tea drinkers into the world of extremely fine and exclusive teas. These teas used to be inaccessible to commoners in the past but today we are able to bring it to you via our extensive network of sources directly from tea farms owned by our friends in different countries.

In the month of June 2026, we are featuring one green tea and two wulong teas:

- 2026 Spring Enshi Matcha 恩施抹茶 10g
- 2026 Spring Pheonix Dancong Duck Shit 凤凰单丛鸭屎香 10g
- 2026 Spring Anxi Tie Guan Yin (Dark Roasted) 浓香型安溪铁观音 10g


Last month, we drank the Enshi Jade Dew. This month, we drink the matcha from the same farm. In 2024 June, we made a trip to Enshi to visit Golden Fruit tea estate that supply our Enshi Jade Dew (恩施玉露). Off the main city and into the countryside, the farm and company are located in a village of Badong Town (巴东县) where the tea farms are away from pollution. To realise an end-to-end value chain for their tea business, the tea estate comprises numerous factories and buildings including tea farms, fruit farms, production factories, quality control labs, packaging factories, cold rooms and warehouses. This estate produces green and red teas in the tradition of Hubei tea culture - the famous Enshi Jade Dew and Li Chuan Red Tea (利川红). Tea making in Tang dynasty style came alive when we witnessed the matcha production of the Tang dynasty and the tea steaming method using old (as well as modern) machines. 

While it is true that all tea styles in Asian lands and beyond historically originated from China, some of such original styles were unfortunately lost in time in the motherland. Treading through the dynasties, Han dynasty saw tea as one in many other herbs to be boiled together in a medicinal concoction, whereas the Tang dynasty started to focus tea in itself by grinding them into powder and boiling them in a pot. As described in the Classic of Tea (茶经) - the first and only tea encyclopedia of the time written in 760 - 780 Tang dynasty - by Lu Yu (陆羽), freshly picked tea leaves were first steamed to kill green, and compressed into flat round shapes using the residual moisture from the steaming. These "tea cakes" were then roasted over fire to dry them for subsequent storage. When making tea, one breaks off a small fragment from the "tea cake" and ground into a fine powder using a medicine mill - the same you see at traditional medicinal shops in the Singapore heartlands. These tea powders were then added to a pot of boiling water, flavoured with a pinch of salt, and cooked like a medicine. This method of boiling tea gives rise to its name - boiled tea, or Jian1 Cha2 (煎茶) in Chinese. 

With the establishment of the Ming dynasty, the first emperor issued a royal ban on compressed tea as the default style of royal tribute, ostensibly owing to empathy towards the farmers who have had to exert tedious efforts in making such styles. With this, powdered tea fell out of favour, at least in the royal courts, and full leaf teas immediately came in to fill the vacuum. Production of powdered tea continued in small remote pockets of China but never become mainstream.

Enshi located in the southwest of Hubei is home to lush terraced mountains and communities of Tujia and Miao ethnic minorities. Being deep in the mountains and secluded from the populace, it was one location that retained the ancient method of steaming and grinding tea. This is also one of the few places in the world that is rich in selenium, a micro-nutrient that is a strong anti-oxidant and boosts thyroid health. The tea is harvested from high-altitude areas where the year-round average temperature is just 16.4°C and the humidity is very high at 82%. 

Matcha is a defining symbol of Japan as much as loose leaf tea is for China. Golden Fruit recognises that Japan leads the world in matcha processing and resolutely customised the full sets of matcha and gyokuro processing machines from Kyoto to be separately installed in their factories. This Chinese matcha is cultivated using the Japanese method of sun-shading before harvest, and processed using the Japanese machines. The steaming is a short duration at 20 sec. This is known as asamushi - a light steamed tea (浅蒸茶) in Japanese tea making. You can expect a lightly steamed tea to be laden with umami, sweet and floral. 

This matcha is special grade - shaded for 20 days and picked 1 bud 1 leaf early spring. This is the best matcha of the company, in the same way that Japanese tea farms name their best matcha as ceremonial grade. The variety is a local variety called Chun Bo Lv (春波绿). The matcha is ground in-house using mechanical grinders, and mechanically sifted through a large fine mesh.

We are using a bamboo whisk (chasen, 茶筅) to whisk this matcha swiftly in a ceramic bowl (chawan, 茶碗) to create a foamy and smooth broth. As compared to the Japanese matcha, it is bolder in flavour and afterflavour. We are using 5g to 120ml of 60°C water to make a thin beverage called a usucha (薄茶) and reducing it to 60ml of water to make a thick beverage called a koicha (濃い茶), a recipe which we use in our outlets to make matcha lattes. For more umami and a lighter profile, one can choose to use 2-3g to 60ml of 40°C water. Without a bamboo whisk or matcha bowl, one can use a small fork in a mug and stir speedily. A delicious yellowish green shows up, with umami and jasmine dominating the flavour, and a thick texture supporting these aromas. With higher temperature, roasted nuts can be savoured from the matcha. Adjust the dilution to your own liking, adding more water if there is a noticeable bitter note and reducing water for a thicker brew.


The Chaozhou region east of Guangdong province is neighbour with Fujian province. Since the last years of the Southern Song dynasty, It has 900 years of history making Dancong (单丛) wulong tea. North of Chaozhou is the Phoenix Mountain (凤凰山) range, with the highest peak at 1,500 m. It is so named because the mountain range looks like a wide base diamond shape, resembling a soaring phoenix with its wings extended.  An active volcano during ancient times, its mineral and nitrogen rich volcanic soil grows tea that is thick and syrupy. The Heavenly Lake (天池) on Wudong Mountain (乌岽山) - one of Phoenix's many peaks - is a crater lake.

In the 19th century when the British were importing loads of tea from China, export records listed a tea called Canton Bohea (广东武夷), literally meaning Bohea-style tea made in Canton, Bohea referring to Wuyi Mountain (武夷山) in the northern tip of Fujian province and Canton is the colonial term for Guangdong province. Purchase of Chinese teas were the exclusive rights of the British East India Company during that time, and part of that was supplied to the British court and other royalties. Guangdong tea in its own name became more widely known only during the Qing dynasty, with the main tea cultivation areas taking shape to become what we see today. After the 2nd Opium War in the mid 19th century, the term Dancong - translated as single bush - was first used to refer to teas from Guangdong. The origin of term probably traced back to the Qing dynasty chief general of the area Wu Liu Qi (饶平总兵吴六奇). It was him who first organised harvesting from a single tea bush named “Fragrance that stretches for 10 miles" (十里香) that bore a distinct aroma.

Teas from Phoenix Mountain are now known as Fenghuang Dancong teas, literally Phoenix (Mountain) single bush teas. The biodiversity of the mountains and the micro-regions created by the different spurs of the range have allowed the natural conditions for the wild tea trees to crossbreed with other plants, developing differences in physical appearances as well as flavour characteristics. Through selection in the last few decades and supported by the maturity of cloning techniques, cultivars with differentiated aroma types were identified and mother trees were isolated. Cloning was done repeatedly to achieve stability in the cultivar, which formed the spectrum of aroma types in the Phoenix teas we know today. Since the cultivars were all cloned from selected single mother bushes, the term Dancong continue to apply. The straight forward names of the cultivars reflect the down to earth and no fuss nature of the Chaozhou people. Some names are elegant, while some are outright eyebrow raising. All are delicious.

In June 2025, we visited one young tea farmer Chen Shao Bo (陈少波) in Chazozhou. A second generation tea farmer (茶二代), he inherited the family farms in addition to the other tea farms which has been abandoned or left unattended by owners who have pursued other interests. A graduate in marketing, he gave up a marketing job with a Dutch company in Guangzhou and moved to 3rd-tier city Chaozhou to continue his family business. He now owns 7 outlets in Chaozhou under the brand of Fenghuang Tea Factory (凤凰茶厂). He is a certified Tea Master (评茶师) under the Chinese national tea certification system. He has multiple awards under his belt, the most recent being Gold Award (一等奖) for his Almond Fragrance (杏仁香) and Bronze Award (三等奖) for his Single Tree Harvest (古树单株) this June 2025.

We are featuring four teas from the tea master. Each tea was roasted using a mix of modern convectional roasting machine and finished off with charcoal roasting. Machine roasting cleans up the aroma by expelling undesirable notes, while also increasing roasting efficiency. Traditional charcoal roasting is done at a higher temperature to increase mouthfeel and sweetness. All teas are harvested by hand on decades old small arbor trees.

One have probably heard of civet cat coffee, and the range of similar products like monkey coffee, elephant coffee, etc. Such coffees are indeed collected from the excrement of these animals. In the same light, Duck Shit wulong tea's extraordinary name often raises eyebrows for the uninitiated, although its growing fame now overruns people's surprise of its name. (Another shocking tea is Cockroach's Wings.) The mother tree stands at Feng Xi Township Kang Tou Village (凤溪坪坑头村), at around 800m on the slopes of Mountain Wu Dong, on the southeast direction from the landmark of Phoenix Sky Lake (凤凰天池). However, this is not its original location, having been transplanted from Li Zi Ping Village (李仔坪村) south of Wu Dong Village (乌岽村) on the same contour in the 1920s. Planted on "duck shit clay" which in fact is chalky yellow clay resembling duck shit, it gradually took on that name. The more romantic version of the name's origin was the deliberate masking of the true commercial value of the tea by the discoverer and making the profits alone without his neighbours' knowledge. The secret was out before long, and now it is widely planted in the region. With its growing fame, the more proper name of Honeysuckle Aroma (银花香) was given in 2014 exactly owing to its aroma resembling intense honeysuckle blossom. Our tea is from Tian Zhu Keng (甜竹坑), the tea master's family farm, at 800m elevation, and the trees are around 45 years old. In May 2026, we roasted this tea together with the tea master. 

We are brewing the tea using gongfu style in an Authority zisha teapot. With 3 gm of tea, we are using 120ml of 88-90°C distilled water and keeping each steep at 30 sec. The brewed leaves smell of baked walnuts and roasted barley, and it curiously reminded us of the energy drink Ovaltine. The brew is pale yellow. On bringing the tea cup to the mouth, you will appreciate the reason why it is named 'Honeysuckle" - honey and honeysuckle notes rush to the nose. A quenching tea, it is salivating, is smooth with sugar cane sweetness, and has little bitterness or astringency. The immediate impression is of roasted barley and honey, with a hint of spices, and ending with honeysuckle. A gentle and pleasant tea, it can be rebrewed one more time before astringency is obvious.


The third tea this month is our 2026 spring Tie Guan Yin (dark roasted). In Tie Guan Yin making techniques, there are three styles - lightly roasted (清香型), heavily roasted (浓香型) and aged (陈香型). Ultimately, the tea drinker decides his preference.

Our spring tea is from the tea fields northeast of Anxi county, on the tea mountains about 45 min's drive from Anxi urban centre. This year, the tea fields are a different field adjacent to the fields of 2024 and 2025, on the same mountain range and separated by 20 minutes car distance on the mountain winding road. The tea farm is higher at around 600m, and the processing factory is right in the tea farm, allowing prompt processing and avoiding the uncontrolled oxidation experienced by leaves harvested a long distance away from factory. The farm does not use any chemical fertilizer but the tea shrubs benefit from the dung from cows which move through the farm. For speed to market, recent years see spring Tie Guan Yin being harvested before optimum maturity of the tea buds. Our tea avoids this commercial trend and is harvested on time. Depending on weather, at the end of April or start of May when the best Tie Guan Yin leaves are harvested, noon temperature is high at about 27°C and night temperature drops to 17°C. The diurnal range is beneficial to the development of quality Tie Guan Yin. 

2025 Spring tea was made by Parchmen & Co together with our tea master in the mountains of Anxi, Fujian. The leaves are harvested on 28th April 2026 and roasted at 1 am on 29th April 2026. In 2026, we made both light roasted and dark roasted. In this tea subscription, you are enjoying the dark roasted tea - accumulative 10 hours of stable roasting for 1-1.5 hours each period on the light roasted Tie Guan Yin which itself took 48 hours from harvest to finish. Our journey is captured in our Instagram story here. The tea master who led us to make the tea is Xu Liang Hu (许良虎), who is the Chinese government appointed custodian of the intangible heritage of Tie Guan Yin making techniques (非物质文化遗产铁观音制作传承人). In 22nd May 2023, Tie Guan Yin technique was recognised by United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO) as a globally important agricultural heritage system.

We are brewing this tea in our Parchmen Glass Gaiwan, using 3g of leaves to 150ml of 95°C water, for 45 sec. We can also use the gongfu tea method, by brewing 6g of leaves to 120ml of 95-100°C water, for 15 sec. Such a method will allow a changing profile for each brew. The good stamina of Tie Guan Yin allows it to be rebrewed multiple times, living up to another adage that there is residual aroma even after seven brews. For the dark roasted tea, the dry leaves are less green and darker tone. In a gongfu style of brewing, the caramelly note from the darker roast is the perfect base for the elegant magnolia and orchid notes are well harmonised in the brew. Bolder with a heavier and creamy mouthfeel, there are also notes of vanilla, chocolates and even a hint of umami and rambutan. For a moment, the tea tastes like sugar cane juice, which extends into the afterflavour - sweet and quenching, with a slight bump at the throat when one swallows the tea. With more brews, the aroma fades out but the sweetness remains.


Enjoy your teas of June 2026!

Thank you for coming onboard Parchmen & Co and travel with us to savour our world in a cup!