Leaving Taiwan & Wisteria

I've spent the last week or so in Taipei, staying with some friends in the city.

On the whole, I've enjoyed it here although the city doesn't really compare my the time spent staying in MiaoLi (an hour's drive to the south). MiaoLi was surrounded by mountains and felt much closer to nature, but Taipei has proved enjoyable in a different way.

I've spent some time taking in the usual cultural museums and sights, but also made plenty of time for tea, cleaning out most of my remaining funds with the plethora of old puerh and beautiful old teapots and teaware that's on offer for quite reasonable prices.

It seems, if the money is available, most vintages of puerh are available if one finds the right people. They often won't be displayed to the public, but if you get chatting with the owner of some teahouses/tea shops, they'll often have a stash of really good stuff in a room in the back.

I've seen many silver kettles, tetsubins, antique pots, a variety of Hong Yin's (50's Red Mark), some antique (1900's-40's) puerhs and many 60's, 70's & 80's bings.



Beside the commercial aspects, many of these tea shop owners are happy to meet a westerner who appreciates puerh and often are willing to brew up some of these old cakes for us to drink together.

One place of note for me has been Wisteria Tea House. This recently reopened following a year of refurbishment, and is a beautiful oasis to wile away a few hours from the hubbub of the streets.



On the menu are several vintage puerhs, a few young ones and many new and old oolongs of different varieties.

The surroundings are elegant, with a tatami room being my place of choice. Low tables, good teaware & water collected from a mountain stream all add to the tea experience. We drank several old teas we'd brought ourselves including some '58/60 (depending on who you ask) GuanYun Gong and a couple of 80's tuocha. With a reasonable charge for water, you're left to drink tea as you please with no feeling of being rushed at all, even for a few hours.



I can highly recommend a visit to this place to fellow tea travellers coming through Taipei.

Some thoughts on approaches to tea

I haven't posted in a while, mainly because I wanted to wait, observe and digest the change and evolution of my relationship with tea.

I originally came to appreciate tea whilst living in a hut in a forest in Scotland. At that time I had a few fairly standard Kunming tea market bings, some reasonable oolongs and a few small bags containing bits and pieces of older puerh.



As most of my day was spent in meditation, my daily tea sessions during the breaks became a very important part of my day. Mostly teaching myself and learning by intuition, many of my practices would be deemed technically 'wrong' by most learned tea folk, but I appreciated the tea and came to value the bits and pieces I had and my time spent with them.

Since finishing my meditation retreat and coming on a journey to some of the places of tea, I've met many people with many opinions and different approaches to tea. Until recently I've been kind of disappointed - it all felt so commercial. First in Hong Kong, and then so much more so in Kunming. Kunming tea market is stocked full of such mediocre tea and teaware that it is a rare thing to come across anything very much of note.

With a few exceptions the quality of the wares on offer is matched by the feeling of the shops there. It is cheap, a commodity, to be bought and sold on after a few years, months or even days, hoping to make a small profit on a large amount of cheap, market standard new tea. It was all about quantity and profit, with not so much quality or love for the tea itself.

There was none of the spiritual feeling I'd previously felt during my tea sessions whilst in the forest in Scotland. It felt 'dead', lacking any kind of positive energy. I guess it's created by the same kinds of minds that can bulldoze a hillside of hundred year old tea trees to make room for their new, efficient, fertilizer fuelled plantations.

And so I left, without realizing consciously how disappointed I felt with my experience of tea there. I did drink some nice tea and met some really nice people, but it was only once I left that I realized that it wasn't what I was looking for from my tea life.

With visa extensions in China being almost impossible during their Olympically crazed paranoia, I had to leave the country. Very fortunately for me I received an email, inviting me to come and stay in Taiwan. I'd previously considered coming to visit Taiwan but had kind of brushed over it, figuring it was going to be too expensive, too hot etc. etc. etc. But here was an invitation, and it fitted the time I had to spend somewhere before my flight back to the UK in July.



My host here has an approach to tea which much more fits my disposition. We've been drinking old teas, drinking in silence appreciating the energies each tea had to offer, drinking in mountains collecting water from mountain streams, we tried silver kettles, tetsubins, new cups, antique cups and so many other variables, all of which had a much more profound effect on the tea drinking experience than I had given credit for previously.



I'm reminded again and again of a trick I used to play on my younger brother when we were young children, swapping him 3 'moneys' for 1 'money'. He gladly accepted, not realizing that his 1 money was worth 5 of mine. In the same way one can buy a whole case of poor tea for the price of a single bing, but for me the satisfaction of a pot of good tea greatly outweighs any gallons of poor tea I could have bought previously.



I guess here I've found the beauty in tea which had been missing for me. If I had to give a recommendation to fellow travellers wanting to experience tea culture I'd say 'by all means go to China, experience what there is there and appreciate it for what it is, but make a stop in Taiwan too, appreciate the tea culture and see what beauty there can be in tea too.'

Transit

As I stopped off in Hong Kong enroute to Taiwan, I called by my friend's house to take some things from the bags I'd left there on my way to Kunming and leave some things I don't require for my next few weeks in Taiwan.

My friends weren't answering their phone, so I called around anyway. After about half an hour of knocking periodically at the door, thinking that they were still asleep, my knocks grew louder. With one particularly heavy knock the door swung open - it hadn't been locked.

I entered to find the place in a mess - the plaster was falling from the ceiling, water was dripping everywhere, their stuff was mostly packed up, moved out or inside plastic bags. Judging from the mouldy smell the place had been like that for a couple of weeks.

I quickly located my stuff, still dry in a cupboard, but the 2 small bings now have a strange smell. My '58 Guanyungong bing is still sealed in it's box and plastic, but I'm afraid to unwrap it.

I quickly stowed it in my bag and got it out of there as soon as possible. Now it's coming to Taiwan with me where I'll have a chance to check it for sure. I'm hoping it's OK. I have the fear that this is a bit more than 'Traditional Hong-Kong wet storage'.

Some further detective work has revealed my friends are in Australia on a trip, apologising that their flat had been 'attacked by water' just before they left.

I'm sure there's a lesson here somewhere, but I'm still trying to figure it out. Maybe it's 'Don't trust anyone with your Guanyungong'. From now on, it comes everywhere with me!

More tea adventures to follow from Taiwan for the next few weeks... stay tuned

Dali

A few photos from a non-tea-related weekend trip to the mountains a few hours away from Kunming.

Banzhang

It is commonly remarked that Yiwu is like the queen of puerh tea, while Banzhang is the king. The soft rounded character of Yiwu is contrasted by the intensely strong, bitter flavour and powerful chaqi of Banzhang. Due to the high demand and subsequent sky high prices (up to 1800RMB/US$260 per kg) of Banzhang tea in recent years, it's unlikely that the vast majority of Banzhang tea on the market is actually pure.

With the myth surrounding Banzhang, this was the place I was most excited to be able to go to on this trip and it was as we were driving for 2 hours up possibly the worst track I've ever driven on that I had time to contemplate the different terrains and contrasting flavours of each area. Just like the teas, compared with the smooth bus ride right into Yiwu village, there's nothing smooth about Banzhang - it's rugged and hard, not for the casual sightseer. You really have got to want to go to this place.



Time and time again we winced and felt bad for our kind driver as he scraped the bottom of his van across another rock or ridge, realising why he'd said that it was pretty much impossible to get to Lao Banzhang without a 4x4.

Suddenly the road forked, we stopped for a brief rest from the boneshaking track and viewed the scenery. We were greeted by a sign informing us of our choice... left road Lao (Old) Banzhang and to the right Xin (New) Banzhang.



It seems that up until around 1940 these villagers lived as one community and split up to farm an adjacent mountain, creating a new village and transplanting some tea trees from the old village.

Since we were to call in on one of Erduo's friends later for lunch in Xin Banzhang, we took the left track and continued our negotiation of the hazardous track to Lao Banzhang.

Upon arriving at the town I was surprised to find a barrier in the way with some men sitting in a hut. As we pulled up they got up and peered through the windows, checking the floor of the car where we were sitting and peering into the back. Due to the crazy heights that the price for Banzhang tea has reached in recent years and the lucrative potential for selling tea from other places as 'Banzhang', the villagers have placed a ban on bringing other tea into the village. This goes some way towards ensuring that the tea within Lao Banzhang village is actually from Lao Banzhang, although I'm sure there's bound to be other ways for someone with a strong wish to smuggle tea into the village.



We pulled up into the centre of the village and took a walk around. It seems that a Hong Kong company had bought all the maocha from the second spring picking, and every farmer collectively had agreed to sell only to them. If we wanted to buy any maocha we had to do it at the one official tea trading post in the town, and could only buy a few kilograms if we wanted any at all. This was fine by me, even at the current price which is 1/2 - 1/3 of last years price, this is still expensive tea at US$90 per kg.



We sat and tasted, wishing as we encountered the bitter Banzhang tea that we'd eaten something before.

This tea was bitter, too bitter even for Banzhang. Upon inquiring, we were told that because of the exceptionally heavy rain this Spring, the second picking all possessed this harsh flavour. Luckily there were a few kilos of the first Spring picking available for us to taste. This was much better. Still possessing the strong Banzhang ku [bitterness], this was much less harsh and more aromatic, with a lasting huigan [pleasant aftertaste]. "We'll take some of this, but just a kilo each".

Our tea was weighed out and we left, with a couple of shopping bags filled with maocha. We had a brief look around the village, before hurredly getting back in the car, on our way towards lunch to fill our aching stomachs.

Our venue for lunch was at Erduo's friend's house in Xin [New] Banzhang. Back onto the track!



Luckily when we reached the junction to Xin Banzhang the road became (comparitively) more smooth, and the few remaining miles to Xin Banzhang were much more comfortable. Before ariving at the village, as with Lao Banzhang, there was the standard barrier and scrutiny of the contents of our car to prevent tea smuggling. Luckily they seemed uninterested with the few kilograms of maocha we'd picked up in Lao Banzhang - presumably they're really only interested in someone bringing sackfulls of tea into the village



First before lunch, we had some more tea. Luckily the Xin Banzhang tea was much less bitter and more easy for our aching stomachs.





Lunch was a pleasure, a feast of tasty dishes, followed by yet more tea. Having already spend more than we could afford on Lao Banzhang maocha, we declined the offer to be able to purchase some Xin Banzhang maocha, but upon our leaving, we were each presented with a plastic bag stuffed full of maocha anyway. Such kindness.





And so, after a brief look around the village, back into the van to begin our journey back home. Pretty much the end of our tea trip and a pleasant end to a very special week.

Nannuoshan (2)

It's with a feeling of relief that I write this post. I'd been holding off on this, while I waited for our tea from Nannuoshan to arrive in Kunming. With usual haphazard inefficiency somehow our package of tea took 1 week to make the 10 hour journey from Menghai to Kunming.

Following MarshalN's warnings about unscrupulous tea farmers and the very late arrival of our tea I began to question my instincts at trusting our farmer friend in Nannuoshan. I'm happy to say that once again our instincts proved correct and our bings arrived safe and intact, tasting as good, if not better than I remembered the maocha tasting. Next time though I've made a mental note to take a sample of maocha away with me to be able to compare to the freshly pressed bings - I realised that if our tea had been switched there would have been no way to prove it. But thankfully all is well, so on with the story...



Following lunch we set about tasting some of the farmer's 2008 Da Shu Cha maocha. First off was the 1st Spring picking. The first picking of Spring is traditionally the most sought after, being more aromatic than it's subsequent siblings and this one didn't disappoint. Throughout the infucions, it smelt and tasted great, however in the first couple of infusions there was a slightly burnt taste and hint of a burnt smell which worried me slightly. Having memories of drinking another tea which exhibited this characteristic in a much more pronounced manner I enquired as to the sha qing of this tea. Erduo (the farmer) confessed that yes, he'd messed up the sha qing for this batch of tea, leaving it a little too long in contact with the heat and scorching it slightly. What a pity.



Next up was the second Spring picking. This had less smell in the cup, but had a thick soup and a nice lingering hui gan. A nice tea to drink.

I thought about pressing a few bings of each one, and then the idea hit me - what about blending the two maochas to get the best qualities of each and even out any shortcomings either may possess. We went back to the sacks and grabbed a handful of each tea, mixed it up as best as possible and refilled the gaiwan.

The flavour was good, the smell was good, but there was still that hint of too much sha qing that worried me. I decided to play it safe and decided just to buy some of the second Spring picking maocha.

While discussing the pressing of the bings, Erduo volunteered a friend's factory in Menghai. He trusted their attention to detail and they'd be happy to press the (relatively) small quantity of bings that we wanted. He volunteered to bring us there that afternoon before dropping us home.

Once again our luck exceeded any of our expectations. While chatting about our plans for the rest of our tea trip, and hearing that we hoped to go to Lao Banzhang the following day, Erduo expressed some reservations. Lao Banzhang is a couple of hours drive up a dirt track from the main road and is accessible only by 4x4, motorbike or truck. He doubted that we'd be able to get there very easily and, after some thought, volunteered that he'd drive us there the next day. He'd drive us back to Menghai that afternoon, bring us to press some bings in the tea factory and stay with us in Menghai, ready to make an early start the next day. Perfect.

Since we had a bit of time to before we needed to go back to town, we looked around his tea processing setup. For Da Shu Cha and smaller quantities of tea, he used the same wok setup for his shaqing, but when processing larger amounts of taidicha he had a machine for this purpose. Basically a revolving drum mounted over a fire, the drum had spiraling fins inside to keep the tea moving around and working it's way through the machine



Also in his mechanized setup was a rou nian [rolling] machine, taking the manual work out of another stage of the processing.



Then it was into the van, to take a drive through his tea plantations before heading back down the mountain, towards Menghai.



We stopped briefly at the factory, drank yet more tea & chatted with the friendly owner, discussing our bing pressing requirements. With a little coersion from Erduo, he finally agreed to let us in to have a look around the factory - apparently (and it's not the first time I'd heard of this) the government has a ban on foreigners going into tea factories - perhaps they're worried that the unhygenic conditions in many of the factories might reach international attention. Luckily there was nothing to worry about here. We donned our white coats, hats and plastic shoe covers and wandered around freely.



Much of what we say here was very similar to the other factory I posted about a few weeks ago so I won't go into any detail. The one major difference here was that they package their tongs in the traditional manner, bound in bamboo husks. This process was intriguing to watch, with the worker stripping, cutting and binding with speed and ease.



Then off for some food & some sleep before our early departure in the morning.

Nannuoshan

We spent a fairly uneventful day making the journey from Yiwu to Menghai and settling into our basic accommodation which we hoped to be able to use as a base for the next few days while we explored surrounding tea mountains. Next morning, we arose early and boarded a bus headed back towards Jinghong, backtracking a little, hoping to jump off half an hour down the road and hitch a lift up the track to Nannuoshan.

As it turned out, once again we had a little more good fortune on our side than we'd even dreamed of hoping for.

As the bus drew out of the station in Menghai, Kathy decided to phone one of the numbers we'd been given by some friends in Kunming of a farmer from Nannuoshan.

It turned out that the farmer, whose name was Erduo, was in Menghai, just a couple of minutes from the bus station. We rushed off the bus to the bemusement of driver and fellow passengers and within 10 minutes we were back on the road to Nannuoshan, this time in a comfy van instead of a crowded bus.

As we drove high into the mountains along a dirt track, I felt very glad to have this friendly guide. Who knows what experiences an alternative scenario would have yielded for us, but having some local knowledge on hand was once again proving invaluable.

We drove past the entrance to his village and up higher into the mountain in search of Nannuoshan's 1000 year old tea tree. At some point we couldn't go further, from here we would continue on foot. As we continued along the track gradually the usual forest vegetation beside the path began to change. First some small tea trees, then bigger ones, then some really huge ones. These were much much bigger trees than those we'd come across in Yiwu, and more similar to those I'd encountered in photograph form usually accompanied by someone standing proudly in front.



We took our obligatory tea-tourist photos standing in front of a few big trees, and continued on to find the one true "millenial old tea tree" that Nannuoshan could lay claim to. Unfortunately, for the makers of those bings which make claims of containing leaves from trees of this age, this tree isn't picked. Being recognised as something of a local heritage piece, this tree has been surrounded by a barbed wire fence and is left to grow according to it's natural cycle, without being of robbed of it's leaves a few times a year.



Having seen this local treasure, we headed back to the van to return to Erduo's house, where his wife and their mothers had produced a beautiful meal for us. Once again we feasted and relaxed in the friendly, open & genuine atmosphere of another tea farmer's house.