Our Story

Sister Qin— Tea with the artisan's heart.

Sister Qin — Xiaoqin Chen — has spent her entire life on Wuyishan. She was born here, into a tea-making family that has worked these cliffs for four generations. She has never lived anywhere else. The teas we sell — Da Hong Pao, Rougui, Shuixian, Lapsang Souchong — are the teas she has been making, in some form or another, since she was a child.

If you visit the workshop in spring, she will be the one moving between the wilting trays, lifting handfuls of leaf and pressing them between her palms to feel the moisture. If you stay long enough, she will pour for you — three or four steeps from a small gaiwan, talking the whole time about what you are tasting and why, never quite stopping to teach but never quite not teaching either.

Why we built Jinrui Teahouse around her.

For decades, Sister Qin's tea has been known in Wuyishan. People drive to the workshop. Tea drinkers from Fujian and Guangdong come in season to buy directly from her library. Outside of China, almost no one has tasted what she makes. The Jinrui Team — her family on the U.S. side and the workshop hands in Wuyishan — exists for one reason: to bring her tea to drinkers who have been looking for it without knowing what to look for.

What does an artisan mean in our workshop?

Artisan is the Chinese word for the heart of an artisan — the slow, attentive, uncompromising standard a craftsperson holds because the craft is what they are, not what they do. Sister Qin looks like this:

• Every batch goes over pinewood charcoal, hand-turned, judged by smell. No machine roasters.
• A roast that tastes "almost right" gets pulled and re-done. It is not sold.
• Library teas are opened and re-roasted on her timing, not on a calendar. Some vintages have gone through twelve cycles.
• The standard for what leaves the workshop is the same standard she would set if she were drinking the tea herself, with someone she respected.

Made in Wuyishan, not branded in Wuyishan.

Most "Wuyi rock tea" sold internationally is bulk leaf rebagged thousands of miles from the mountain. Sister Qin's tea is processed at her family's workshop inside the protected Wuyi production zone — the only place Da Hong Pao, Rougui, and Shuixian can legally be produced as yancha. The Jinrui Team handles every step from her packing table to your door. No wholesalers, no rebagging, no middlemen.

The library.

In a back room of Sister Qin's workshop, there is a small library of aged teas — clay jars and porcelain vessels labeled by year and cultivar, some going back to the early 1990s. They were never originally for sale. They were what she held back from the best harvests, for herself and for visiting drinkers. As the U.S. market for serious tea has grown, she has agreed to release small lots from the library when she has something worth sharing. The 2009 Aged Narcissus currently in our shop is one of those. When a vintage is gone, it is gone. There is no restock.

What's next.

Jinrui will stay small, and that is on purpose. Sister Qin's workshop produces what it produces. As the brand grows, the Jinrui Team will bring on a small Yunnan line — puer and Dianhong black tea — sourced through our team in Yunnan and built to the same standard. We are in no hurry.

For questions about a specific tea, brewing problems, or anything else, write us at hello@gravitea.co. We answer everything.

— The Jinrui Team