2026 Dara Old Tree Green Tea from Thailand

This green tea comes from Dara, a small family-run tea workshop at around 1,000 meters in the mountains of northern Thailand, between Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son. Old tea trees grow in the forest around the workshop. In this area, trees like these are almost always used for miang, the fermented tea leaves traditionally eaten in northern Thailand, and Dara is the only workshop on the mountain making tea to drink.

The workshop was started about forty years ago by a man who came on foot from Yunnan and the woman he married in the village. It's named for their daughter, who runs it now. The processing draws on old methods from Yunnan, while the trees are cared for in the local miang tradition.

Leaves from old trees like these usually become sheng puerh, which is sun dried. Here they're made in the style of a green tea instead. After withering and a first fixing, the leaves are rolled and then dried in several rounds. Old tree green teas are made more often in Vietnam and are rare elsewhere in the region.

The aroma is warm and round, with notes of honey, lightly toasted nuts and raisins. The tannins build gradually, adding presence and mouthfeel, with a long finish and mineral notes. You can brew it like a sheng puerh, with boiling water and very short steeps for more structure, or like a green tea, with cooler water and longer steeps for a softer, silkier cup.

Late spring 2026 harvest.