From Kunming to the charcoal hearth: Sandry Law’s latest find
Sandry Law, our Head of Procurement operating out of Kunming, spends his winters driving the backroads of Lancang County in search of producers who still work with fire. In a village too small for any map, he found a fifth-generation master who bakes his oolong over lychee-wood coals inside a low-ceilinged stone hut. The process is slow — each batch of tightly rolled leaves spends three days over gentle heat, turned by hand every hour. This spring’s harvest was particularly generous: large, fleshy leaves from century-old Da Ye Zhong trees growing at 1,400 metres, where cool nights concentrate the sap. Sandry negotiated directly with the family, bypassing the usual wholesale circles, and oversaw every step of post‑fermentation resting. The result is a tea that carries the deep, hushed warmth of a charcoal‑heated room. Pressed into a generous 780‑gram cake for steady aging, it is a tea to return to — year after year — as the roast mellows and the fruit deepens. This is the third lot Sandry has brought back for TEAMOTEA’s family of brands, and the first to wear the Cha Pao name.