Uncle Cai's Tea (Enshi Miao'er Tea Co.)

Uncle Cai's Tea is run by Cai Yunsong, who graduated from a Hubei tea specialization program in 1979 and later trained under Yang Shengwei, the tenth-generation, nationally recognized master of Enshi Yulu tea-making. Yang formally recognized Cai as the craft's eleventh-generation bearer, a lineage tied to Enshi Yulu's status as a steamed green tea and one of China's intangible cultural heritage crafts - a technique distinguished from most Chinese green teas by steaming rather than pan-firing the leaf to halt oxidation, a method rooted in the Enshi hills of western Hubei. The flagship tea takes roughly five minutes to fully brew and has been independently tested at Germany's GBA laboratory, confirming no pesticide or chemical residue. The house also produces Enshi Buds, a pan-fired green tea whose leaves stand upright while steeping; a local dragonwell made with Longjing 43 cultivars using techniques adapted from Hangzhou; and Redwood, a fermented black tea made from tea buds. Based at 195 Dongfeng Avenue in Enshi city, the shop sells online through yulu-tea.com and is also distributed in Germany. It functions less as a retail tea shop than as a working transmission point for a specific regional craft, with Cai's own hands carrying the technique forward under a named, documented lineage rather than a generic 'traditional' label.