Jirisan
1,915 m
"Korea’s first tea garden was planted on this mountain twelve hundred years ago. It is still here."
Jirisan is the great massif of the Korean south — a sea of ridges rather than a single cone, holding the country’s oldest temples and its oldest tea. The bushes of Hadong grow semi-wild on steep stone terraces, seeded down slopes rather than planted in rows.
The Seomjin river runs below the gardens, and its morning mists do for Hadong what the cloud sea does for Alishan — slow the leaf, deepen it, keep it tender late into spring.
The bottle will be built on jukro (죽로) — “bamboo dew” tea, shaded under bamboo groves so the leaf steeps out deep, sweet, and quietly savory. The first batch will be kickstarted by our founders; back the campaign and you are in before anyone else.
The terraces above the Seomjin.
The leaf we have chosen is jukro (죽로), “bamboo dew” — grown under bamboo groves on the Hwagae valley terraces, shaded so the leaf steeps out slow and sweet. It is one of Korea’s rarest greens.
Shading trades bitterness for depth: a mellow, low-astringency cup, thick and rounded, with a quiet savoury umami and notes of steamed chestnut and bamboo. More shadow than sun in it — the still, deep base the gin is built around.
