Thursday 18 April 2013

Hong Kong, Yunnan and Canton

April 2013, and I'm back in China for another 3 weeks of learning and discovery. This year I am in Yunnan and Fujian provinces, looking at Puer, White tea, Lapsang, Tie Guanyin, Rock Oolongs and flowering teas. The purpose of the trip is to visit farmers who supply these teas to Fortnum & Mason, learn more about them and discover new and unusual teas along the way.

I'll try to describe the teas in the various blog entries without getting too technical. If you've read previous entries you'll realise that this isn't so much a blog for tea experts, but more for those interested in my travels and experiences in search of Interesting and rare teas. For those of you who want more tea information there are plenty of sources out there, albeit of variable accuracy. I'll go on to mention two specifically, but "please note that other websites and blogs are available".

En route to China I spent a day in Hong Kong and caught up with one of my tea heroes, Leo Kwan. I first met Leo in London in 2001, when he was promoting his Ming Cha brand via a tea bar in Selfridges. It was he who first opened my eyes to the beauty and complexity of fine Oolongs, and his depth of knowledge, warmth and openness made a big impression on me - the idea that the whole point of having knowledge is to share it, not to keep it hidden away. Leo now has a web resource designed to be a forum for sharing information and opinions about tea, and I recommend it to anyone who would like to go a little deeper: www.teaguardian.com

I'm travelling with Jennifer Jiang & husband Ken as before, but also with Jen and Ali from the Canton Tea Company. Jen founded the company six years ago and heads it up from London, but its base is in Bristol, where I met them briefly just over a year ago. Nice people. It always adds an extra dimension to travel with other tea enthusiasts, particularly when we share the same views about quality, authenticity and engaging direct with artisan farmers. Canton is a fine company and another good resource: www.cantonteaco.com

For part of the time we will also be accompanied by Martin, a freelance filmmaker who is putting together something called  "Secrets of the Tea Masters", in partnership with Canton Tea but also in cooperation with Fortnum & Mason. This is of course not about me but the Chinese tea masters, featuring Jennifer Jiang. I might get to appear in the background every so often if that doesn't spoil the scenery.

As was the case last year, the itinerary is flexible and all I really know for certain is that I am due to arrive at Xishuangbanna airport in SW Yunnan late on Thursday April 11th. I've been to Yunnan once before, and remember it at a wild and beautiful place. I'm sure it won't disappoint.

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