The Process
Six movements between orchard and cup. Nothing here is fast, and none of it is decoration.
It starts with a tangerine picked early: small, green, dense with aromatic oil. Ripeness would soften it; the peel is wanted at its most outspoken.
Each fruit is opened at the crown and emptied by hand. What remains is a whole, unbroken shell of peel, the size of a walnut.
The shell is packed tight with whole leaf: ripe pu-erh for the black box, white tea for the pale one.
Filled fruit dries slowly in open sun, and the peel tightens around the leaf like a seal.
Then, stillness. Oils migrate; peel and leaf trade character until neither is quite what it was.
In time, one whole piece meets hot water. Rinse once. Steep short. Count past ten.
The rest happens in your pot.