Authentic Origins
At ForestWell, “ancient tea tree” is not a vague story — it is a traceable origin.
Every tea we offer can be connected to one or several real ancient tea trees in Yunnan: living trees, many hundreds of years old, tended and protected by local Indigenous communities for generations.
Rare, rooted, and verifiable, these trees give each cup not only depth of flavor but a true sense of place.
Scroll down to see our ancient trees
Government Certified ancient tree label
Scan the QR Code to Verify!
The age of our tea trees ranges from 300 to 1800 years. Most of them are protected strictly by the government, making each harvest exceptionally limited. So each cup in your hand is a rare offering.
Rare collections
The Last Batch of the 1800 year old tree
In recent years, harvesting from this 1,800-year-old ancient tea tree has been prohibited to protect the living tree and its surrounding ecosystem.
Our collection comes from one of the final harvests before the ban — making it an exceptionally rare collection.
Special Varieties
We source our tea from multiple types of ancient trees: selectively bred, semi-wild, and wild. Native people, for generations, selectively bred tea trees that taste good, carefully tending and harvesting these trees in their ancient groves; sometimes, tea trees grow close to their villages, but are in the rainforest. They are only occasionally cared for but are still harvested for tea.
Wild ancient trees hide deep in the mountains among the primitive forests, for centuries absorbing the minerals and nutrients of the ecosystem. It is hard to find these ancestor trees without the guidance of the local people.
Some of these old trees contain tea tree varieties only available locally, such as camellia sinensis var. dehungensis and Camellia taliensis. What we offer canNOT be massively produced.
Interested in learning more about ancient trees?
Schedule an in-person tour of our ancient groves in Menghai, Yunnan, and the rainforest by emailing bestea@forestwelltea.com. Please include your name and contact information.
