I thought I'd post this - apologies for the poor sound quality and short length, but you get the idea.
A Traditional Ai-Ni (the minority living in Nannuo) tea picking song...
Monday, July 6, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Chen Qi Nan
I thought I'd post some pictures of a visit I had to Chen Qi Nan's studio last week.
This man makes some really beautiful teaware. In past years he was an engineer, then gave it up to devote his time to making pottery and throughout he drank tea and practiced Qi Gong. These different aspects of his life come through perfectly in his work - his pieces have the practical construction of an engineer, the functionality that a tea drinker would wish for and the art and spirit of someone who has a feeling for more subtle things.
Many pieces he makes using pieces of wood he finds in the mountains and clay that he produces from grinding and mixing different stones he finds.
The results are truly amazing pieces of tea art.
you can click on the pictures for a better view...
(more photos on my flickr page - follow the links in the pictures)
This man makes some really beautiful teaware. In past years he was an engineer, then gave it up to devote his time to making pottery and throughout he drank tea and practiced Qi Gong. These different aspects of his life come through perfectly in his work - his pieces have the practical construction of an engineer, the functionality that a tea drinker would wish for and the art and spirit of someone who has a feeling for more subtle things.
Many pieces he makes using pieces of wood he finds in the mountains and clay that he produces from grinding and mixing different stones he finds.
The results are truly amazing pieces of tea art.
you can click on the pictures for a better view...
(more photos on my flickr page - follow the links in the pictures)
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Naka
I thought I'd post some photos of some of the trees I made tea from this year.
First up... Naka, a relatively unfamous mountain about 1 hour drive from Menghai, known for its abundance of old trees with characteristically small leaves & home to the La Hu minority. These trees are apparently ~400 years old. Smooth clean taste, with some bite and nice chaqi.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Yiwu
I felt a little disappointed upon leaving Yiwu this year, despite learning a lot. I guess this year, being able to speak the language a bit better and with the novelty of a new place wearing off, I began to see the cracks of commercialism that had gone mostly unnoticed last year. This year I went during the peak of Spring and the town was awash with fancy jeeps as tea producers from all over China, Korea and Taiwan made their yearly trip to collect tea.
The farmers we stayed with were busy pressing cakes and buying maocha from neighbouring villages to fulfil orders from people who didn't have the time or wish to stay around and oversee their production. The tea was good but not great and, having agreed to press some bings for a London tea shop, I didn't feel comfortable buying this tea to ship half way across the world.
Since the farmers we were staying with were busy we decided to strike out alone and head for Mahei village, about 15km from Yiwu town. Since there was fairly regular traffic of tea producers and locals on this road I felt comfortable walking to the road and sticking out my thumb. Sure enough, within 10 minutes there was a tractor with a couple of locals passing. He slowed long enough to allow us to jump on and our slow and bumpy journey to Mahei began.
I learnt some interesting things - in Mahei, they have many old trees, but most have been cropped to make the tea easier to pick. I was told an interesting story, it may be true or not, but apparently a government representative's family member was climbing the old trees to pick tea and fell, breaking her back. An order went out for all farmers to crop their trees. Most families complied, but a few were lazy and now have the remaining large trees in Mahei.
Mahei tea is interesting. despite being close to Yiwu town, the tea displays different characteristics. The leaves, when dried, turn a very dark colour, almost black, and the leaves are amongst the healthiest I've seen with complex sub-veins branching though the leaf.
I wandered through the village stopping at various houses to try the tea. With the dryness of the weather this spring, the leaves have little moisture in them, making it all too easy for farmers to over fry the leaves in the shaqing stage and leaving a burnt taste to the maocha. Also with less quantity of fresh leaves on the trees and farmers having to walk further and longer to pick a full basket it meant that more of the leaves at the bottom of their baskets were getting bruised and oxidised.
These drawbacks aside, I eventually found a family with great tea who seemed honest and open. We had lunch and then discussed purchasing some of their tea. Actually it was all of the tea they had, yesterday's pickings - apparently there's no trouble selling their tea with the daily jeeps of tea producers visiting.
A piece of advice I'd gleaned from the farmer I was staying with was to compare the tea they were selling to the tea that they had drying outside, since that was certainly processed by them and not many people bring bags of fresh leaves from other places. It all looked good, but more importantly, it tasted good. And so I began the journey home with a large bag of tea, hoping for one of those jeeps to be making a journey back.
Luckily after not too far, two motorbikes stopped and offered us a lift. My friend got on one with the tea strapped behind and I got on the other and they quickly ferried us back to Yiwu town. We had an interesting chat with the guys driving the bikes - they were from Gua Feng Zai - a village close to the Laos border. Apparently they live quite quietly keeping a lot of their old customs, occasionally venturing across the border into Laos and even marrying Laos natives. They extended an invitation, which we quickly agreed to, for us to come and stay with them for a while next year. They have some great tea there!
Getting the tea back home, we retasted the tea and were very happy with the tea, making a mental note the next day as we picked out the yellow leaves that we also need to be more careful about checking the quantity of yellow leaves in the maocha before purchasing. The maocha was about 5-10% yellow leaves. At least we now have a couple of great quality yellow leaf cakes to drink alongside our pure bings.
The farmers we stayed with were busy pressing cakes and buying maocha from neighbouring villages to fulfil orders from people who didn't have the time or wish to stay around and oversee their production. The tea was good but not great and, having agreed to press some bings for a London tea shop, I didn't feel comfortable buying this tea to ship half way across the world.
Since the farmers we were staying with were busy we decided to strike out alone and head for Mahei village, about 15km from Yiwu town. Since there was fairly regular traffic of tea producers and locals on this road I felt comfortable walking to the road and sticking out my thumb. Sure enough, within 10 minutes there was a tractor with a couple of locals passing. He slowed long enough to allow us to jump on and our slow and bumpy journey to Mahei began.
I learnt some interesting things - in Mahei, they have many old trees, but most have been cropped to make the tea easier to pick. I was told an interesting story, it may be true or not, but apparently a government representative's family member was climbing the old trees to pick tea and fell, breaking her back. An order went out for all farmers to crop their trees. Most families complied, but a few were lazy and now have the remaining large trees in Mahei.
Mahei tea is interesting. despite being close to Yiwu town, the tea displays different characteristics. The leaves, when dried, turn a very dark colour, almost black, and the leaves are amongst the healthiest I've seen with complex sub-veins branching though the leaf.
I wandered through the village stopping at various houses to try the tea. With the dryness of the weather this spring, the leaves have little moisture in them, making it all too easy for farmers to over fry the leaves in the shaqing stage and leaving a burnt taste to the maocha. Also with less quantity of fresh leaves on the trees and farmers having to walk further and longer to pick a full basket it meant that more of the leaves at the bottom of their baskets were getting bruised and oxidised.
These drawbacks aside, I eventually found a family with great tea who seemed honest and open. We had lunch and then discussed purchasing some of their tea. Actually it was all of the tea they had, yesterday's pickings - apparently there's no trouble selling their tea with the daily jeeps of tea producers visiting.
A piece of advice I'd gleaned from the farmer I was staying with was to compare the tea they were selling to the tea that they had drying outside, since that was certainly processed by them and not many people bring bags of fresh leaves from other places. It all looked good, but more importantly, it tasted good. And so I began the journey home with a large bag of tea, hoping for one of those jeeps to be making a journey back.
Luckily after not too far, two motorbikes stopped and offered us a lift. My friend got on one with the tea strapped behind and I got on the other and they quickly ferried us back to Yiwu town. We had an interesting chat with the guys driving the bikes - they were from Gua Feng Zai - a village close to the Laos border. Apparently they live quite quietly keeping a lot of their old customs, occasionally venturing across the border into Laos and even marrying Laos natives. They extended an invitation, which we quickly agreed to, for us to come and stay with them for a while next year. They have some great tea there!
Getting the tea back home, we retasted the tea and were very happy with the tea, making a mental note the next day as we picked out the yellow leaves that we also need to be more careful about checking the quantity of yellow leaves in the maocha before purchasing. The maocha was about 5-10% yellow leaves. At least we now have a couple of great quality yellow leaf cakes to drink alongside our pure bings.
Friday, March 27, 2009
The village of dogs
One of the first facts I was told upon arriving at Lao Banzhang yesterday was that there are around 500 people in Lao Banzhang and over 1000 dogs! They're everywhere. Apparently people don't take care of a lot of them, they just scavenge and somehow survive off meagre scraps.
Having arrived in comfort this time - being invited and driven there by one of the managers of Chen Shen tea company, I proceeded to inquire after a few more facts... "Is it true you bought the rights to Lao Banzhang tea and that all the farmers have to sell they tea through you?"... " (paraphrased)... well it was last year, but then we figured that even with our security around the village, the villagers were still sneaking tea in and trying to sell it to us. We had some difficult situations, since we'd agreed to buy their Lao Banzhang tea. So this year we decided to change things a bit. The farmers can bring their tea to us to buy, then if we don't like it or don't want it, they can sell it privately elsewhere."
Renting the mountain for 30 years sounded like a strange thing when I first heard of it, and it seemed even stranger when I went to Lao Banzhang last year and saw the security checkpoints as you entered and left the village, and the one place you could buy tea - only straight from the company. I found out a bit more about the pricing this time - the factory bought it from the farmers for 400RMB/kg and sold it for 600RMB/kg. So everyone made quite a bit of money - the farmers and the factory. And everyone became richer and richer, the farmers and the factory. The wealth here is obvious compared to other villages I've been to. Many houses have new roofs, expensive 4x4 jeeps sit in front of many, and walking into the village leader's huge house it was obvious that some extensive renovations and decorations had taken place in the last couple of years.
As we entered, we were greeted by a group of people inside - some from Chen Shen, one guy who worked for CNNP, the leader of the village and some others. They were in the process of brewing up tea from various little bags of maocha on the table. There was to be a tea competition in Nannuo in a few weeks, and they were trying to select the best Banzhang tea to enter in the competition. I sat down and tasted. All were amazing, some more than others, but all very good. Strong, with a bitterness that quickly turned to sweetness in the mouth - it's easy to see why Banzhang grew to have the reputation it has.
Some more tea drinking, some lunch (managing to escape the ubiquitous drinking of Bai Jiu (a strong rice/corn alcohol) that seems to accompany many meals in villages), and then on to see some of the old trees that surround Lao Banzhang village. These were huge, bigger than many I'd seen in other places. Bigger than most I'd seen in Nannuo. I'd not had a chance to see these trees last time I'd visited and was glad to be able to see some of these trees for myself.
Then it was on to some farmer's houses to taste some tea. The factory hadn't started selling tea yet this year, so any purchases had to be directly from the farmers. This was the point, as seems common when cash starts to get involved, when things became a little messy. With buying from the factory, there is some guarantee, but when buying directly from the farmers there is no guarantee. There's no reputation to uphold and no reason not to switch their expensive Lao Banzhang maocha from lesser quality maocha from other places. And so it turned out to be as we tasted maocha after maocha in different houses. The tea was good, even old growth tea, but the banzhang flavour was muted as if a little banzhang had been mixed with tea from other places.
I hadn't planned to buy much for myself, maybe a kilogram or two, but a friend had asked me to make 3 tongs of Lao Banzhang for him. Something didn't feel right, so I walked away with only a small handful of the competition maocha that I'd been given. A little disappointed, but feeling that there's tea in less famous mountains that is as good as Banzhang tea, but without the same price tag and without the same incentive for dishonesty. With the factory setting the price high for their tea, and with farmers now selling privately too, I think Banzhang tea is destined to become messier and messier.
A very interesting day. Mulling it over in my mind on the bus ride back to Jinghong from Menghai, I was glad I'd gone - a little disappointed in the approach they had, but very interesting. Actually one of the nicest parts of the day was sharing the journey with two unexpected companions - an editor from Wushing who was going there to interview one of the factory managers and a celadon potter from Taipei who was along for the ride.
Having arrived in comfort this time - being invited and driven there by one of the managers of Chen Shen tea company, I proceeded to inquire after a few more facts... "Is it true you bought the rights to Lao Banzhang tea and that all the farmers have to sell they tea through you?"... " (paraphrased)... well it was last year, but then we figured that even with our security around the village, the villagers were still sneaking tea in and trying to sell it to us. We had some difficult situations, since we'd agreed to buy their Lao Banzhang tea. So this year we decided to change things a bit. The farmers can bring their tea to us to buy, then if we don't like it or don't want it, they can sell it privately elsewhere."
Renting the mountain for 30 years sounded like a strange thing when I first heard of it, and it seemed even stranger when I went to Lao Banzhang last year and saw the security checkpoints as you entered and left the village, and the one place you could buy tea - only straight from the company. I found out a bit more about the pricing this time - the factory bought it from the farmers for 400RMB/kg and sold it for 600RMB/kg. So everyone made quite a bit of money - the farmers and the factory. And everyone became richer and richer, the farmers and the factory. The wealth here is obvious compared to other villages I've been to. Many houses have new roofs, expensive 4x4 jeeps sit in front of many, and walking into the village leader's huge house it was obvious that some extensive renovations and decorations had taken place in the last couple of years.
As we entered, we were greeted by a group of people inside - some from Chen Shen, one guy who worked for CNNP, the leader of the village and some others. They were in the process of brewing up tea from various little bags of maocha on the table. There was to be a tea competition in Nannuo in a few weeks, and they were trying to select the best Banzhang tea to enter in the competition. I sat down and tasted. All were amazing, some more than others, but all very good. Strong, with a bitterness that quickly turned to sweetness in the mouth - it's easy to see why Banzhang grew to have the reputation it has.
Some more tea drinking, some lunch (managing to escape the ubiquitous drinking of Bai Jiu (a strong rice/corn alcohol) that seems to accompany many meals in villages), and then on to see some of the old trees that surround Lao Banzhang village. These were huge, bigger than many I'd seen in other places. Bigger than most I'd seen in Nannuo. I'd not had a chance to see these trees last time I'd visited and was glad to be able to see some of these trees for myself.
Then it was on to some farmer's houses to taste some tea. The factory hadn't started selling tea yet this year, so any purchases had to be directly from the farmers. This was the point, as seems common when cash starts to get involved, when things became a little messy. With buying from the factory, there is some guarantee, but when buying directly from the farmers there is no guarantee. There's no reputation to uphold and no reason not to switch their expensive Lao Banzhang maocha from lesser quality maocha from other places. And so it turned out to be as we tasted maocha after maocha in different houses. The tea was good, even old growth tea, but the banzhang flavour was muted as if a little banzhang had been mixed with tea from other places.
I hadn't planned to buy much for myself, maybe a kilogram or two, but a friend had asked me to make 3 tongs of Lao Banzhang for him. Something didn't feel right, so I walked away with only a small handful of the competition maocha that I'd been given. A little disappointed, but feeling that there's tea in less famous mountains that is as good as Banzhang tea, but without the same price tag and without the same incentive for dishonesty. With the factory setting the price high for their tea, and with farmers now selling privately too, I think Banzhang tea is destined to become messier and messier.
A very interesting day. Mulling it over in my mind on the bus ride back to Jinghong from Menghai, I was glad I'd gone - a little disappointed in the approach they had, but very interesting. Actually one of the nicest parts of the day was sharing the journey with two unexpected companions - an editor from Wushing who was going there to interview one of the factory managers and a celadon potter from Taipei who was along for the ride.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Some more photos from Nannuo
Finally back to somewhere with a good internet connection I thought I'd upload some photos from my time in Nannuo.
It's been a great week staying in Nannuoshan. Spending time living with the family was amazing and very touching. Also having time to go tea picking most days and try some different options with the processing was a very educational process.
I'd underestimated the skill involved in the shaqing process before - there are so many variables to take into account... the strength and thickness of the leaves, the amount of moisture in them, the heat of the fire, the amount of leaves in the wok and the length of time to perfrom the sha qing process for. Also the tightness of the rolling of the leaves and the length of time to sun dry them for - all of these things have a big effect on the final tea.
It was nice to be there to be able to taste teas from different days and discuss with the farmer his thoughts on different processing methods.
Now, it's back to Jinghong for a couple of days rest, before heading on to Yiwu. It's nice to be back in a bed again, somewhere where there aren't insects biting me all day, but my body feels healthy - good hard work in the tea mountains, nourished by so so many wild vegetables and simple, healthy, tasty cooking has left me feeling good.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Nannuoshan (1)
After a long wait for the tea season to begin, on Sunday I made my way south with a friend from Kunming to begin a month in the mountains, staying with tea farmers in Xishuangbanna.
The farmers we'd met last year had turned out to be really nice, honest and down to earth people, and we'd kept in touch with them from time to time during the year since. And so, on Thursday we received a phone call from the farmer in Nannuoshan telling us that on Monday there was a festival to mark the beginning of the tea picking tea season.
A couple of rushed days to pack up our belongings and hand over the flat in kunming back to the landlord, a 11 hour bus journey on Sunday and on Monday we found ourselves picked up on the main road by our friendly farmer Erduo to be whisked up the mountain to be greeted by seemingly endless meals and traditional songs in various people's houses in the village.
Once again, I was really touched by the openness and hospitality of these village people. We had a long chat with the leader of the village about their wishes for their tea. They realise that they've got some great tea here and want to promote the true unblended taste of their mountain (even of subregions within the mountain). I got some feeling for their gratitude for their ancestors and the old trees they'd planted and their realisation that they need to protect and culture these precious trees to hand over to their children.
In the evening, we retired back to Erduo's house for another meal and as we finished a car pulled up with a group of tea producers from Guangzhou who were also spending some time searching for good tea. Among them were two people we'd met earlier in the year at a tea expo there. We were very happy to meet them again, we'd spent quite a bit of time at their stall drinking tea with them. In fact, theirs was the only great tea we'd drunk there, a haven amidst a sea of mediocrity. They were just calling in for a few hours before continuing their journey. They planned to travel to Lincang and visit a few small villages which, despite being relatively unknown, had some old tea trees and some great tea. They ate dinner and we spent a couple more hours chatting about tea, tea producing and their venture and of course drinking tea, some from Nannuoshan and some Yancha I'd brought along for a bit of variety.
The next morning, after relatively sleepless night of dogs barking until 4am and roosters crowing from 5, we rose early to begin our tea picking. Since Erduo knew we were coming he'd held off on picking his old trees, so when we climbed up the mountain, his trees were ripe with buds and fat leaves. It was nice to see his trees, we'd previously seen many of his plantations, but never actually seen his old trees. His family have been farming tea in Nannuoshan for six generations, and when he was younger and many of his neighbours were cutting their old trees to make plantations he admits that he was too lazy to do much work. Luckily his laziness has paid off, and he still has about 300 old trees, ranging from 3-800 years old.
And so the tea picking begins....
The farmers we'd met last year had turned out to be really nice, honest and down to earth people, and we'd kept in touch with them from time to time during the year since. And so, on Thursday we received a phone call from the farmer in Nannuoshan telling us that on Monday there was a festival to mark the beginning of the tea picking tea season.
A couple of rushed days to pack up our belongings and hand over the flat in kunming back to the landlord, a 11 hour bus journey on Sunday and on Monday we found ourselves picked up on the main road by our friendly farmer Erduo to be whisked up the mountain to be greeted by seemingly endless meals and traditional songs in various people's houses in the village.
Once again, I was really touched by the openness and hospitality of these village people. We had a long chat with the leader of the village about their wishes for their tea. They realise that they've got some great tea here and want to promote the true unblended taste of their mountain (even of subregions within the mountain). I got some feeling for their gratitude for their ancestors and the old trees they'd planted and their realisation that they need to protect and culture these precious trees to hand over to their children.
In the evening, we retired back to Erduo's house for another meal and as we finished a car pulled up with a group of tea producers from Guangzhou who were also spending some time searching for good tea. Among them were two people we'd met earlier in the year at a tea expo there. We were very happy to meet them again, we'd spent quite a bit of time at their stall drinking tea with them. In fact, theirs was the only great tea we'd drunk there, a haven amidst a sea of mediocrity. They were just calling in for a few hours before continuing their journey. They planned to travel to Lincang and visit a few small villages which, despite being relatively unknown, had some old tea trees and some great tea. They ate dinner and we spent a couple more hours chatting about tea, tea producing and their venture and of course drinking tea, some from Nannuoshan and some Yancha I'd brought along for a bit of variety.
The next morning, after relatively sleepless night of dogs barking until 4am and roosters crowing from 5, we rose early to begin our tea picking. Since Erduo knew we were coming he'd held off on picking his old trees, so when we climbed up the mountain, his trees were ripe with buds and fat leaves. It was nice to see his trees, we'd previously seen many of his plantations, but never actually seen his old trees. His family have been farming tea in Nannuoshan for six generations, and when he was younger and many of his neighbours were cutting their old trees to make plantations he admits that he was too lazy to do much work. Luckily his laziness has paid off, and he still has about 300 old trees, ranging from 3-800 years old.
And so the tea picking begins....
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