Unravelling Sun Yi Shun Liu An Tea

I had written my thoughts about Liu An tea earlier this May.  I had noticed that the various Liu An baskets I had was different. There were slightly different variations in the packing of the tea in small rattan baskets. Taste and aroma was also different. I had assumed that Sun Yi Shun tea factory simply adjusted their Liu An tea, like adjusting the fermentation levels, to cater to the different demands of the Chinese tea markets.

A little bit of history. Sun Yi Shun factory had closed down for about 40 years before new productions of Liu An tea restarted around 1990s. Many of these newer production tea had the Sun Yi Shun neifei enclosed in the tea baskets.

This was where I got my assumptions wrong. I had talked to a Liu An distributor and I am now better informed about the state of the Liu An production. 

There are about 4-5 tea factories in An Hui, China. These factories have the Sun Yi Shun neifei enclosed in their Liu An tea baskets.  I had identified 2 of these factories and should be able to get the names of the other factories in due course.  

The 1st factory is a Wang Zhen Xiang tea factory. The neifei has a small logo which is an outline of a human face (supposedly the owner, Mr Wang).  The other tea factory is  Lao Liu An tea factory.

This would indicate that the Sun Yi Shun label is not exclusive to any tea factory that produces Liu An tea.  My guess is that the tea factories use this old label to be more creditable and later adding on their tea factory name to distinguish themselves from their competitors.

The Wang Zhen Xiang version is fruity with a slight herbal complexity in the tea. The Lao Liu An version is more sweet scented with a more pronounced sweet dried fruit aroma in the tea. Both tea are excellent. I will put a study pack of both these tea for my readers next week.