Unflinching Standards

A branding update and intro to Wuweisanfang

One of the most important things I’ve learned about buying tea, is that the best tea that always came from people with an unflinching standard. Many of my best tea friends simply refused to carry anything that they didn’t believe in, regardless of hype or even quality. They would pass on many teas that I would introduce them simply because it didn’t meet their vision.

It is fun watching a lot of these friends grow over time as vendors. They started by underselling their tea, because they know that it’s not the best — the best tea would be quite hard to sell. They refuse to upsell their tea, but try to stick to the facts as much as possible. They will only tell the full story behind the tea only after you are close friends — rather than using it to sell the tea.

This becomes particularly hard with Puerh, especially if you are a careful, thorough person. How can someone make claims that their tea will age well, without actually observing it? Much claims made by western vendors would be laughed out the door once the appropriate translation to something such as wine would be made — most vendors are often deal hunting on surplus negociant grapes across different farms and producers, and then making claims about how these wines would age without any real history.

Wuweisanfang (無爲山房)

These are some of the many traits that drew me to Wuweisanfang, a private source that only accepts reservation through invitation and referrals.

Mr. Oh has just hit a decade of tea pressing experience when I first visited in 2016 — He had only started pressing them after forming deep relationships with some of the most influential producers and farmers in the area from the 90s. For puerh, he specializes in Manzhuan, Yiwu, and Yibang — places where he has long standing relationships with spanning decades at this point. Especially for places like Manzhuan, he has teas from the same farmers and processors starting from 2000.

Wuweisanfang started as a series of organized group buys for Mr. Oh in 2002, and most of his private clients are made up of people who have been buying from him from the beginning. When he started pressing his own teas, they are meant for his own personal collection, but continuing the spirit of how he started, he makes them available to his friends and collaborators.

Quick Note on the Previous XMTF Branding

He works with various producers, factories, and farmers. Much of his cakes were pressed at Xiangming GuDianMan Tea Factory, where he has close relationships with the owner. Although now he presses from a few different companies as his operations are scaling down, he still works very closely with his same sources to gain access to and select teas that meet his strict standards.

Most of his cakes will have a “Produced by Wuweisanfang” line on the wrapper to show that it was carefully selected by him.

There are a lot of reasons why we chose to represent the teas as a special production line within XMTF previously, but ultimately we believe representing the teas as WWSF and dividing the future offerings up more clearly would be the most transparent. We apologize for the confusion.

The Flagship Pressings, the Private Collection (私藏, Si Cang)

• The flagship pressings are called named “Private Collection” (私藏), and feature single origin cakes from Manzhuan, Yiwu, and Yibang. They generally come from specific farmers and areas that he has been working with from the very beginning, with a few exceptions

  • His pressings in 2010 and 2011 also feature new and different cakes. They involve a core area Mansong from Yibang, and a core area Wangong from Yiwu.

  • One of the private collection teas in 2015 from Yibang is a rewrapped cake from a more specific garden, and there are two pressings that year for Yibang.

• The private collection pressings started as greater blends of the areas. For example, the 2008 Yiwu Si Cang features a good amount of Luishuidong, Mahei and Dingjiazhai. However, as these terroirs have became more expensive, they were slowly dropped from the blends until now they feature the single village teas that form the core of his offerings.

• The private collection teas are always first pick spring gushu — meaning at least 300+ year old trees in this case. This is calculated through a thorough cataloguing of farmers in the area and knowing what trees they own and have access to.

• The teas do not feature any filler, allowing the teas to reach a particular density and weight that’s difficult to find in other teas. It also makes the teas very consistent. It is always worth comparing how substantive these cakes are with other supposed gushu teas — and check for differences in consistency and density.

The Arbor (Small Tree) Series

The small trees are only selected from old tea gardens that have exceptional care for at least a century. Much of the old tea gardens are maintained by making sure no seeds actually germinate in the same area as the old tea trees but separated into separate groves. The arbor trees were 80-100 year olds on average when they first started, and now feature 100-120 year old trees as they have aged with his productions. They feature teas from the same three areas as his flagship Si Cang series.

The 2007 Teas

2007 was a rather time of chaos as it is the time where the bubble was bursting, but also of opportunity. Teas increased in price so quickly during the bubble, and when it burst and buyers could not be found for many of the teas, Mr. Oh and his colleagues took the opportunities to select for and press many cakes that met his standards. Much of these cakes are Spring first pick gushu — with some arbor teas. Cakes such as the 2007 Manlin, or the 2007 12FTM blend were created at this time.

Special Productions

Part of the reason why Mr. Oh has a close relationship with many of the producers was that he has worked with many of them from the very beginning, helping many of these now famous producers and factories get started. Through this relationship, he selects for particularly special teas that are sourced by his friends and collaborators. Many cakes fall under this category — from 2010 Fall Walong, 2011 Nannuo, 2011 Simao, 2014 Yishanmo blend, and so on. While they may not reach the standards of the Si Cang teas, they are generally old tree teas that were obtained through personal relationships that all know of his exacting standards for tea.

The Exception

We often talk about finding exceptional tea — but when a source generally has an extremely high hit rate of exceptional tea, you start to listen. I’ve personally been drinking teas from WWSF for 9 years now, and it’s exciting to see these teas age exceptionally well.

Personally, I think the best teas are teas that you can continue to learn from and never quite outgrew. While I’ve outgrown quite a bit of teas and sources — there isn’t much from WWSF that I personally feel like I’ve outgrown. Many of the teas are in my general daily rotation, and it’s a tea that I believe everyone should check out, try, and give it a try over a long period of time. While the tea might not convince you on the first try, they will definitely convince you over the evolution of the tea and you as a tea drinker.