Tea Mountains, Ancient Trees and Young Tea Masters

Yunnan is tea's genetic home, its spiritual home and its cultural home. All the tea plants in the world can trace their ancestry to the mountain forests where SW China meets Vietnam, Laos, Burma & India. It's the only part of the world where tea is indigenous, and there are still productive trees that are over 800 years old.

800 year-old tree

There are many tea mountains in Yunnan,each with its own 'terroir' and local tea trees: even trees of the same botanical variety show subtle differences depending in where they grow. It's a case of driving as far as roads allow, walking to a village and from there into the mountain to find the ancient trees. These gnarled and twisted solitary trees with their large dark leaves are a far cry from the yellow-green carpets of cloned bushes in tea plantations, and when climbing up through the forests there is a sense of encountering something ancient, almost magical.

Walking on the Mountain

Trees on the Mountain

The leaves from these ancient trees are used to create the mysterious tea that is Puer ( or Pu-erh). For many people (myself included until a few years ago), Puer means a dark turgid tea with a taste of mouldy wet leaves, accompanied by the vague hope that it might be healthy in some way. This is a tragedy. Puer in its raw (as opposed to cooked or ripened) form is a light & complex taste adventure, with flavours that develop as the tea matures. In fact, the word translated as "raw" - Shengcha - can also mean "alive tea", which is a perfect description. I'll do a separate entry on how Puer is made so that you don't need to plough through the detail here, suffice it to say that the chemistry of the leaves and the making process result in a unique type of tea, and Puer is categorised as distinct from all other teas.

We start from a base in Menghai, from where we visit Nannuo and Hekai Tea mountains. The pattern is the same - walk to a village, meet a tea farmer at his house, taste tea, visit the trees, taste tea, share a meal, watch the making process, taste tea. Leaving aside the tea aspects (which I find fascinating but don't necessarily expect others to), the experience of sharing a meal in a tiny house high up a mountain is unforgettable. Rice, wild vegetables, spices, perhaps some meat, shared with the family. And seated round a low table on tiny low stools, the cause of much hilarity in my case. I have one picture that just says "who the hell let this giant into my house?", which I'll add to the post when I get back.

Physical giant maybe, but certainly not a tea giant. Some of you will have gathered that I have been a tea taster and buyer for over 30 years. This really ought to count for something, but not out here. My first visit to China in 2002 was like opening a window in a dull stuffy room and letting in sunlight and fresh air. it's the same each time I visit, with the bizarre feeling of knowing less than I did before - I find myself having to strip back what I thought I knew and to start again. It's not so much that I don't have knowledge, more that it's the wrong kind of knowledge. In fact, most of what I learnt in the first 25 years is utterly irrelevant here. Even the way if preparing and tasting tea is different. So I feel a bit exposed.

Cooking Lunch

"Who the hell let this giant into my house?"

We spent the last two days with Zhong Xin, a Xi Fu, or Tea Master. He travels round Yunnan finding the best leaves and turning them into exquisite teas. He has developed his own techniques from scratch and is experimenting all the time. He is a bit of a legend, and attracts people to watch when he is making tea. Oh, and he's 29. TWENTY NINE. Same age as Jennifer Jiang, and to see them together riffing about tea making is something special. We had to leave them to it last night as we wanted to eat before going to bed.

My strategy in these circumstances? I try to avoid the conversation about my tea career, in case it goes something like this:

"How long have you been in tea?"

"Oh, about 34 years"

"That's a long time"

"it is, yes"

Pause

"So how come you don't know anything then?"

Tea Master Zhong Xin