Fanjing Mountain

Fanjing Mountain stands alone above the surrounding hills, wrapped in mist for much of the year. That isolation is why UNESCO protects it: ancient forests, rare plants and animals such as the Guizhou snub-nosed monkey, which lives nowhere else on earth.

It is also a sacred Buddhist mountain, with temples built on its sheerest peaks. Pilgrims have climbed it for centuries; the names of our grades follow the same path, from the mist at the foot to the summit.

We are one independent grower working one plot inside the protected zone. There is no co-op blending and no buying in from other farms, and we cannot clear more land, so the size of every harvest is set by the mountain.

The tea bushes are shaded before the spring pick, the leaves are picked by hand, steamed, dried and slowly stone-milled into powder. Sustainably farmed by hand, in small batches.

Whisking powdered tea into a froth was the height of tea culture in Song-dynasty China. In 1191 the monk Eisai carried tea seeds and the whisking ritual from China to Japan, where it grew into the matcha tradition the world knows today.

We are proud of both histories. Guirui brings whisked green tea back to the Chinese mountains where the practice started, grown in a place protected for the whole world.