Sichuan – Chengdu Tea House Teahouse Chatter

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Templar Tea

A ‘city’ view or interpretation of things – all things – often strips a thing of its informality and its earthiness…assuming it has any earthiness at all.

Tea has long held a formidable relationship with the earth as it begins in the earth, draws from the earth and retains the taste of what it has taken from the earth. It has also held strong bonds with cities that are leagues (or mere kilometres) away as some of its greatest fans need some of its astringency to ‘take them away’.

It is December and a gloomy wet sheen hangs over Chengdu and nothing is entirely dry. It is a city infamous for its perpetual grey shrouds. Within the tea nation of China, perhaps no other first tier city can claim as much attachment to tea as can Chengdu. It is a metropolis that pays its respects in quantities consumed. Situated in China’s southwestern Sichuan province, Chengdu has long and happily confounded me. It is all things: liberal and forward thinking, yet it also determinedly holds on to traditions. The tradition that brings me is the city’s long and mighty relationship with tea, the sacred leaf.

ss of tea in Chengdu

The idea and tradition of a teahouse can hardly find a better and more committed version than that of the sort that has been functioning in Chengdu for an eternity. It is in Chengdu that tea’s ancient traditions come together with a practical economy.

Chengdu Tea House

Here, you sit alone or with friends, and tea isn’t so much prepared for you by a nimble fingered master as it is simply planted in front of you, to consume in your own time, your own way. Teas, their properties and correct water temperatures, are not part of the Chengdu teahouse in many cases, though more ‘formal’ houses are easy to locate within the city’s huge spaces. The previous day, by contrast, I sat for four hours while a tea hostess served two others and myself an entire gamut of the green leaf in as many shapes and strengths as one can imagine. Flared cups, a four hundred kilo tea table, tongs, smelling cups…all the instruments of a tea fanatic’s paradise were on display. Today though, it was tea simplicity laid bare.

Chengdu Tea Master

During the Song Dynasty, Sichuan’s teas were funneling into and up onto the Tibetan Plateau, along the Sichuan-Tibet version of the Tea Horse Road. It was also acclaimed teas from Sichuan that made their way to the Emperors – picked in miniscule batches and presented in pure silver canisters. Tea has long grown within the province’s lush and rolling lands and has a history of export, but it has legions of devotees within closer realms, taking in its perfumed astringency in far more humble surroundings.

My own selfish thirst can easily be sated by hundreds of tea shops that sit tucked away in nooks and little grey alleyways. There is no shortage of tea denizens by which to quench a thirst. Even amidst the ever growing number of coffee shops, it is still a landscape of tea. One of Chengdu’s informal tea mantras is ‘a tea house is a place of all things, all words and all thoughts’. It is and always has been a lively soul-filled place where one can let loose, sip some fluid and let loose some more. Tea, friends and ideas all blend into a wonderful mix where voices explode as the tea stimulants take hold.

One of my destinations is an informal tea house that is (in my mind at least) a perfect example of what makes a tea house in Chengdu so necessary to visit – simple, unpretentious and made entirely for humans and the human spirit. Sitting wedged into an ugly corner of the Song Xian Qiao Antique Market, it is in many ways a perfect example of an average (neither famous nor particularly touristy) bustling teahouse. Teahouses without people are sad paradoxes.

Trudging through the year-round antique market, one can eye vignettes of China’s past, with everything from ancient posters that reek of must, to Tibetan charms and stones. Of interest to me though, is how many of the shop keepers have tea vessels in their hands, nearby or being desperately sought. Informality rules here – as it should, where tea is concerned. Thermoses, jars, coffee cups, and the odd ornate tea set up, all pay tribute to that which ‘must’ be consumed: tea.

The air is cold, dank and windless, and a chill weaves through layers into the bone. Teahouses here have long provided a corner of reprieve, from a city known for stifling hot summers and grim sunless winter days.

Vendors are up to their chins in wool and stand in small pods clutching their glass cups, mugs and jars of tea. Getting the hot tea into their bodies is more important than pushing goods at this point of mid-day. Peering into the bottom of some of these jars I can make out the floating bodies of delicate green tea leaves. Ceremonies here are for show – tea is for consuming.

A great joy for me is getting lost, for it is only then that the body and mind float and discover places, people and ultimately, when the body does arrive at a destination, there is that sense of discovery. There is tea waiting somewhere.

After muddling along a damp narrow alley, I ask a Tibetan woman who is selling turquoise where the nearest teahouse is. She points and tells me that there is only one around this end of the market, and in a moment of intimacy, lets me know that the teahouse in question also serves the famed (and violently sweet) milk teas that Tibetans from Lhasa crave. Many of the stalls directly around the teahouse are occupied by long robed Tibetans, with ornaments and thangka paintings, and the teahouse’s most frequent and loyal customers are stall owners and shopkeepers.

The Song Xian Xiang Ming Cha Lo teahouse is both tacky and wondrous. Traditional teas are served (as are specific foods) – a brilliant way of keeping tea-fed bodies happy with the necessary balance of carbohydrates – and the place buzzes on one end with discussions, and on another, bodies recline with books and newspapers. It has long been this way with many of the teahouses – food, entertainment, repose and the ubiquitous mahjong playing are all available to keep the customers content from morning to night. During the height of the Cultural Revolution, teahouses were viewed with suspicion as being places that sowed and encouraged the seeds of rebellion, though now the teahouses (and thankfully their teas) flow once again.

I park myself with friends near a window and sink into a horrible wicker couch that has long lost any of its support or charm. Up comes a minute little waitress, hustling along with a tray of food, and throws down the menus with a smile, barely pausing as she moves on to deliver noodles to an adjoining table. There are no rules of when, what or how to consume tea. It is a fluid consumed before, with, and after meals.

The tea menu is simple, with the usual assortment of ubiquitous greens – Long Jing, Bi Lo Chun, Nu’er Wan – some Oolongs, and a vast list of flower teas. The flower teas don’t warrant a glance from me, but a local green from near Meng Shan further west in Sichuan gets the nod. Lightly roasted it is – from my memory at least – a gentle green whose roasting allows it more potent temperatures of water.

Around us, food is slurped noisily in, business meetings between antique dealers and clients bark along, cigarette smoke cruises in grey patches, and all through the large room there is a buzz of life. It is this one aspect perhaps more than any other that marks out the idea of a teahouse in this city.

When tea arrives, it is not sublime pottery with intricate utensils and sumptuous leaves, but rather four tall water glasses with our leaves already portioned out in substantial heaps – I measure out 9-10 in my glass – and a bright pink 4 liter thermos of hot water to refill. This thermos will be replaced whenever our group of four has managed to drain it. You are charged for the tea leaves and the ‘rent’ of the chair and table you occupy – which can in some cases extend to an entire day. Some tables are permanently reserved for nearby business people who are capable of showing up four times a day at all hours.

The idea isn’t to breath in a hint of something fragrant from the tea, it isn’t even to necessarily appreciate (in the purist’s sense) the tea. Here, the steps are simple: to order the favorite tea and have it along with whatever discussion of the day is on. It is to partake in a bit of nonsense, or business, or friendship, with a muscular portion of tea by the side for as long as one wants. To add to the ease with which one can pass a day here, there is, on permanent standby, a shoe-shine gentlemen who will take your shoes (encase your feet in paper slippers during the interim) and return your shined shoes to you within the hour – all the while one hasn’t moved from the side of tea. The teahouse is not a silent retreat in Chengdu, it is rather a shifting of gears into another world of energy.

Digging into my tea, I know that this tea ‘style’ isn’t perhaps the one that the west would  like to imagine, but it does retain something essential of the spirit of tea: it is about bringing people together, and the very presence of tea leaves in a vessel seems to do something to nullify just a bit of the surrounding chaos.

Here there isn’t anyone staring hard into my eyes in wait for my nod of approval at a carefully prepared vintage tea…there is only a gentle chaos, which never quite fades.

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A Bit of Bitter – Meng Ko and Mr. Yang

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Jeff Fuchs

“Mazes of terms, descriptions…words, but so many do not understand the first thing about tea…and people don’t understand ‘bitter’”. There is far more to the irate monologue so I’m recording the little outburst on an mp3 player. This way I can take down every gorgeous detail of his firestorm in my own time.

Mr. Yang has worked himself into a red fury. This wasn’t the first or the last genuine tea person that would get stoked into a mild state of lunacy by the tea world’s ‘modern’ march forward and seeming disinterest in the traditions of the green leaf. An entire vocabulary of terms and descriptions now exist where once there were only unambiguous words to describe processes, tastes and of course teas. This isn’t entirely true, for in China there has long been a tradition of lush adjectives to describe teas, tea vessels, a tea’s character, and even the kind of individuals who make teas…but the general point remains, and for Mr. Yang of Xiaguan it is a point he never tires of making.

Southeast of Xiaguan, in western Yunnan province – where I seem to spend much of my life – I am looking at muscular tea bushes, in the full light of the sun, with longtime tea producer Mr. Yang, who is contrasting his diatribe with gentle strokes of the bushes’ magnificent leaves. I’ve been privy to his scorching commentaries before and he feels safe blasting away in front of me.

Meng Ko tea bushes

The full and almost plump Meng Ko tea bushes spaced out amidst pine forests and other conifers. Ideal for almost any climate because of their tough nature, they do thrive in western Yunnan.

The next thing that is said is one of those things that set the foundation for a “truth” in the ever-murky world of tea.

“Everyone knows what tea’s final product looks like, but how many know the process of how it became like that…from where it came”? He looks at me as though I might be one of these offenders, before moving on to caress yet more of the green leaves that surround us.

Within tea’s mighty but underrated sphere, rarely do leaves – or an understanding of them – warrant much investigation or interest. Location, process, and the post picking process, get much credit (fairly enough) but the ‘species’ of leaf rarely causes any curiosity…which is exactly what enrages puritans like Mr. Yang. For him, as for many, every single step, every morsel of the process is important in the final product and absolutely nothing can be taken for granted.

Meng Ko tea leaves

Serrated edges and big full formed leaves are what the Meng Ko is known and fame for. Here a leaf and seed rest together for the winter months.

In western central Yunnan – long a hot-bed of tea culture and wild tea growth –it is the broad-leaf variety (Camellia sinensis var. assamica) that has and continues to rule.  As in Xishuangbanna in the south, this big beast of a leaf rules on high.

Here though, there is a specific species of the broad leaf that has long produced leaves that stand up to climactic change, pests and even production changes. They are the leaves that Mr. Yang and I are looking at on this cool morning, the ‘Meng Ko Da Ye’ – Men Co Big Leaf. Used to create both Puerhs and simple Green teas for mass market, this species has long provided a stout raw product for the production facilities that enhance and manipulate it. The name Meng Ko itself originates from Lincang Prefecture – another tea hotbed in Yunnan – and refers to a place of the same name. It is understated in both its origins and in its role in providing a solid and consistent base by which to create some tea magic.

Preceding this walk through the ‘Meng Ko’ plantation, we had consumed some of a simple green tea made from the Meng Ko leaves. We sipped it hot and tangy in the cool morning air – the kind that siphons through the nostrils making everything taste as it is – eating and drinking out of doors always clarifies and edits taste in my little sphere. When we do sip, the bite of the tea is what I notice.   It is more astringent than the normal hints of bitterness expected in these parts from teas that are not over-processed. Mentioning this to Mr. Yang, he gleams just slightly.

Morning Tea

Understated leaves, understated serving…this is what Mr. Yang serves up in the early morning forgoing entirely the ceremonial aspect in favour of simplicity to get the most out of a great tea.

“It is the polyphenols you taste and the Meng Ko species is loaded with them”. This sudden leap into science throws our entire tea-drinking scene sideways, somehow taking away from the calm idealism and serenity of the surroundings. Polyphenols, naturally bitter in taste, are one of the most potent of that special “a” word which now garners so much attention in the world of health: antioxidants. Polyphenols rule.

Polyphenols are present in all plant foods and they supplant vitamins in fruit and vegetables in what they contribute to antioxidants. Bitter to the taste, tannin is the most ‘known’ of the polyphenols. Now being credited with preventing cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer, polyphenols are part of the new set of ‘crucial compounds’ within the world of health foods.

For local tea drinkers, this new focal point matters not, as this bitter taste has long been associated with health giving properties. Intuition and centuries of studying tea has made the knowledge something fluid and almost taken for granted. Bitterness has always been a complementary partner of healthy foods in much of Asia and it has never met with the hostility that it has conjured up in western palates. Now science catches up. While most tea consumed in the world is still ‘black’, the process of oxidization, which ‘creates’ a black tea from green, changes the taste but obliterates green tea polyphenols. High temperatures (when frying or baking tea) oxygen, and over-processing can all neutralize polyphenols. Polyphenols need, by necessity, a simple and pure processing regime to keep them alive and kicking.

Meng Ko tea leaves growing

The beauty of morning light…and more – the beauty of Meng Ko leaves left to grow and live undisturbed by sprays or manipulation.

While sipping our simple morning ‘Meng Ko’ green tea, Mr. Yang takes long, noisy slurps from the cup, all the while grunting in a barely understood grumble, “tea should be bitter”.
He explains with wide gestures (his tea hand is obviously used), without spilling a drop, that what makes the Meng Ko species such a champion is that it is hearty enough to survive pests and high altitude cold, while also being able to contribute a host of qualities, aromas and tastes to a tea. I am wondering at this point if somehow he is referring to himself as he repeatedly uses the term “underappreciated”.

“What is most important to a tea quality is the geography that it grows in – organic, high altitude, good drainage and cool climates. These are the musts. Then it is down to the producer to create a good tea”.

Back amongst the Meng Ko tea bushes and the here and now Mr. Yang almost screams, “When a tea is bitter you know it hasn’t been through too much processing. People must learn to love bitter”. The last sentence falls off and is almost whispered. Again I have the sneaking suspicion that he is referring to himself as much as the broad green serrated leaves before us.

He wanders up to a patch of broad leaves, checking their branches, their pliancy and even their bases. “Like friends – nothing much to look at but always honest”.

And so, one of the underrated backbones of Yunnan’s many vintage tea species is revealed by one of its underappreciated fans.

traditional bundles of Meng Ko tea

Dried Meng Ko leaves tied in traditional bundles known as the “broom” lie much the same as they once appeared as fresh leaves. In this form they are ready for immediate consumption.

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The Legendary Gang Tong Tea

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Jeff Fuchs

Legends of the tea world became (and the odd one still does become) legends in a time when quality workmanship and a transparency of the product were present. Long Jing, Bi Luo Chun and Dien Hong find their origins in a time when rigid adherence to traditional methods was exalted and when drinkers were actually able to distinguish what they were drinking. Though legends still exist in the world of tea, they are often obfuscated by reputation, while lacking the attention to absolute detail. Legitimate and traditional production methods are often ditched in favor of cost saving, clever recipes. Legends, however, remain – both in name and more importantly, in desiccated green substance.

It is late in the year – I traipse behind ‘Ma’, a Hui (Muslim) tea maker on an east-facing mountain, west of Dali, in western Yunnan province. We are hunting a small plot of land,  a small production facility and a tea with a thousand years of fabled history in this part of China – a classic that still rates as a ‘legend’ of the tea world, though in diminishing quantities.

Though late in the season and dry, there is always some time to find (or search for) a legend. Gang Tong tea commenced its life as a tea made almost exclusively by Buddhist monks and it has maintained an aura of a tea that is/was/and hopefully will continue to be a classic. The term ‘Gang Tong’ is explained to me, by my man Ma, amidst the surrounding forests, as a Buddhist term roughly meaning “smooth feeling road”. Part of that smooth feeling comes no doubt from the fact that Gang Tong tea goes through a unique process which includes a final intense ‘baking’ period. First though, we have to find the field that provides the leaves.

Ma, myself and another tea friend, walk along a dirt track, which follows the ridge of the mountain. We are almost 2500 meters high – optimal for any tea – with a rippling pine covered mountain off to our western flank, which powers up to nearly four thousand meters. The tea fields which reside here do so in part because of the easing effects of the mountains.  Monsoon rains (we are close to the Burma border) and the intense sun are softened by the mountains to our west.  We seek no less than a perfect little tea environment hidden in the woods.

When we come around a slight bend – which is layered in shade – a small patch of tea bushes appears and there is the slightest of noises from Ma. Somehow, this tiny tract of land seems less dramatic than one would expect from a plantation that grows a tea that would become exulted in the tea world. This is, in many ways, the essence of the tea world – dramatic scenes rarely make for great teas. Nothing stirs and the only item of notice is how little is of notice. It is beautiful and clean in an understated way because of its very isolation. Forgotten places have that wonderful ability of retaining that which makes them special.

Gang Tong tea plantation

A portion of the tea plantation that creates Gang Tong tea.

In China, the ‘mu’, a measurement of land, is used, with one ‘mu’ equaling 660 square meters. This little chunk of green before us is no more than 2 mu, entirely covered by tea bushes in various shapes, sizes and ages. Ma and another friend lead me through, pointing out the tea flowers and enormous walnut-sized tea seeds on the bushes. November’s low temperatures bring the quiet regenerative period for tea plants and trees. Seeds are often crushed and used for oils that are in turn used for cooking and skin oil. Tea’s magnificence knows no bounds.

Ma’s rough callused hands gently hold up the enormous leaves, whose serrated edges are like green teeth. These leaves will be plucked three times a year, fried to eliminate moisture within the leaves and fix the flavor, rolled within a kind of cotton cheesecloth to remove yet more moisture, then re-fried.  Finally, in a kind of ‘coup de gras’, the leaves will be baked at a very high, controlled heat.

The three of us find three more similarly hidden and seemingly insignificant tea fields, each tucked into corners, with shade and the requisite drainage slopes present. Within such plots of land, three or even four generations of tea plants rest and stay together. Here at least, the age of the plant doesn’t matter as long as the conditions are right. Pickers carefully determine which leaves will be clipped (with Gang Tong, it matters not which particular buds or leaves are picked in what configurations as long as there is a healthy mix of older and younger leaves for balanced taste). For Gang Tong tea there are two priorities 1) the frying, rolling, frying, baking combination (done by a master) and 2) that the leaves are Yunnan big leafed varietals (Camellia Sinensis Assamica).

Gang Tong tea

Camellia Sinensis Assamica

As with all teas (and serious drinkers), there are two universal tea ‘laws’ that apply and are reinforced here with the Gang Tong Tea. Ma, like many who actually work with tea, imparts these with some passion. He reiterates that the most important elements are the environment in which the particular leaf grows, and the producer who makes a particular tea.

The three of us reach the ‘factory’; the miniature and reassuringly archaic production plant where Ma and his wife create Gang Tong teas. Old brick tiles, and an ‘L’ shaped series of buildings – small in size – and a tiny courtyard that is alive with scurrying chickens, is all that stands before us.

The location, and the simplicity of the layout, is a testament to a faith in that which has worked and needs no adulteration. It leads (in me at least) to an inherent trust in the product. It is not laziness that has blunted the senses, but rather a complete faith and understanding in the process. Before any inspection of the plant itself, Ma quietly insists upon a taste of the tea in question. Gang Tong’s claim to fame is its warming strength, in part due to the baking and double frying component, which strengthens the taste. This process, while enhancing a certain power in what the mouth feels, also has a draw-back. In the high heat of the final baking process, some of the vital amino acids within the tea itself are killed off.

Gang Tong tea host

'Ma' doing what every good tea host does, serves up some brilliance and some anecdotes, along with some heavy tea truths.

A simple thermos is used to infuse a huge amount of leaves into a 750 ml pot. The cups are tiny glass jars that have found a renewed life in becoming tea vessels. Ma explains that a large amount of leaves and an ultra short amount of infusion time makes for a perfect cup of tea (perhaps five seconds total). The strength of the infusions comes through in a dark dandelion color and the taste of roasted tea comes through immediately. With an inhalation of air one can ‘taste’ the baked taste, which has the effect of gently rounding out the bitterness. Where a ‘roasted’ Gunpowder has that smoked taste (often chemically), and has the effect of almost brutalizing the palate, this is a softer, more natural version, where the attention to detail seems palpable on the tongue.

Carrying a ‘traveler’ cup of tea to keep the mouth senses sated, we make our way into the tea-making sanctum, the small factory portion that only produces one tea, Gang Tong.

Immaculate and slightly forlorn, three ancient rolling machines sit facing the windows’ blasts of sunlight, waiting in perfect silence. To the right of us, an ancient stone tomb – the fryer – within which tea leaves will roll (twice) with fire-driven heat. Encased in gray clay – which insulates the heat – the fryer too waits for its green leafed friends…and the spring season. Bundles of wood lie neatly tied together leaning against the concrete wall.

ancient tea leaf rollers

Three ancient rollers which will press and roll the leaves after a first frying. The long casket shaped fryer (top right) is the first stage for the freshly cut leaves.

We make our way further back into a single room with a single metal hulk standing front and center – the ‘baker’. A massive door on one end where the wood gets piled in and a well-used chimney complete the little factory. This room is where the final stage takes place and the master Ma, and him alone, knows precisely the heat, the time and the little touches that all masters inevitably impart.

In this little confined area of pine, palms and tea plots, Gang Tong is produced in the traditional manner for as long as Gang Tong has been a tea, though Ma broods that fakes appear everywhere and people now “like to drink a classic, while not knowing what makes it a classic”. He laments further that “no one takes time”. Such masters the world over speak of this syndrome.

Less than three thousand kg’s of Gang Tong is produced annually and much of that is purchased by ‘people in the know’, who return annually to sip (and purchase) a legend. Leaving with a few more cups shooting down into me, I do what I’ve often done…negotiate for a couple of bags of the tea. They will serve not only to sate a thirst but also to remind us of a tradition and legend.

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Ban Pun Puerh – A Hidden Classic

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Jeff Fuchs

Gems within the world of tea often lie within the realms of classics, happily obscured except for those who truly ‘search’ out teas. Sitting within the green fertile hills, Ban Pun is the ‘victim’ of their more famed neighbor’s reputations, eliciting little interest because they simply aren’t known or searched for. These teas become something rare and special as their names aren’t splashed around. They remain upon the lips and tongues of those locals who don’t buy into the hype…they remain hidden classics that are produced in small quantities for those who ‘know’.

Southwest of Menghai, amidst the imposing empires of some of Puerh’s formidable teas, Lau Banzhang, Hsin Banzhang and Hou Kai, a tea of potent abilities has silently grown for long centuries keeping itself to itself, if only because of its ostentatious and almost flawless Puerh neighbor…the exulted Lau Banzhang. Banzhang teas have long commanded huge sums of money and respect among Asian Puerh tea buyers.

No airport dots Menghai’s increasingly busy lines; if one comes, one comes by four wheeled machine. My bus does as it always does in these areas: it winds and bends and chugs its way for the fifty or so minutes from Jinghong to Menghai. Lush fruit growing valleys of banana and sumptuous pineapple thin out to give way to forests and the masses of rubber tree plantations, which in turn give way to tea, as the altitudes rise to near a thousand meters. It is when my eyes come upon the increasing number of tea plants that a certain settled calm hits the body, as if the tastes are already on the palate.

As always with my tea adventures in Asia, it is the people aspect which make things happen and opens up previously unknown (but dreamt about) voids, where tea and its magic touch reside. ‘A friend who knows a friend who’s cousin lives in a village’ or sometimes ‘my cousin’s husband’s sister’s dog might know someone’. It matters not to me, as long as the source is trustworthy and the end result is a quality tea in the mouth. These wonderfully informal ways are all about what Asia hasn’t forgotten – the human element. In this case, I will be met at the Menghai bus station and hustled into the Pulang Mountains, still further southwest. A friend’s friend will pick me up…this is all of the information I have, which isn’t at all atypical. Things down here in the south are often this way – casual to the extreme, but with the often surprising bonus that things do progress, somehow.

My contact is waiting at the bus station with a 4×4 that has weathered a few brutal lives. Known simply as ‘La’, my contact, driver and tea guide is a small, thickset woman with hunched, powerful shoulders and a kind of haunted look to her. She is of the Hani people, is chestnut colored and has hands that look quite capable of bashing holes into steel. Our two hour drive is one of continuous bouncing, where my hostess reveals an ability to shift gears, talk on the phone in rapid bursts, and face me while talking – all simultaneously. She is a small, multitasking woman who can do it all.

The village of Ban Pun and its little green leaves of glory lie tucked into the Pulang Mountains southwest of Menghai and has remained slightly anonymous due to one single fact: that it resides within a few short kilometers of Lau Banzhang – one of the most famed Puerh growing regions on the planet. There is nothing else around, besides a few other key tea growing villages.  Ban Pun village has both Hani and Lahu people and its 1700 meter altitude puts it in the realm of a ‘perfect’ conflux of elements for tea growth – forest coverage, humidity and temperatures. Ancient tea forests – precious and ageless – surround the town, which like many other tea towns within the Pulang Mountains, sits in a slight bowl surrounded by red earth and rolling hills of rich green. All about the town are makeshift plastic covered ‘drying’ shelters for tea leaves. It is a town that lives and breathes tea. It is a town that already sings to me.

I am quickly introduced to a relative of a friend of La’s, a young and silent girl who, without any fuss whatsoever, beckons me to follow her up a path. The day’s heat is upon us, but the light in autumn begins to fade quickly and there is much to see…I hope.

The moment we enter the forest we are wrapped in the sounds and smells of rich sub-tropical delight. Cicadas drone on in ebbs and flows and the green envelope that is the tea forest takes in all of the senses. Young tea plants – younger tea plants – line the pathways, like the polite yet -to-form acolytes that they are. Pushing further in and up into the green fortress the tea plants give way to sporadic green giants – tea trees that defy everything around them. Bamboo, tea’s old companion, shoots up in groves, providing coverage, and working in a kind of complicit cooperation with the tea trees. Taking up different minerals from the red caked earth and sending its shallow roots in a splayed pattern, bamboo, one of nature’s fastest growers, never competes with tea’s deep and direct root lines.

Moving ever higher through the green, a massive tea tree is suddenly before us…I am in a mumbling kind of awe while my sure-footed hostess merely shrugs and smiles, continuing on her way. The very ancient of the ancient trees here range back to seven or eight hundred years and the one I stare at seems to just shoot beyond, up through the canopy, like a natural totem.

At one point, though we haven’t crossed any pickers, we come across a delicate homage to a picker’s life: a food sack, bottle of water and a neatly arranged pile of freshly picked leaves that lie in a shaded area. Even though summer harvests recently took place, not one of the tea trees looks to have been over-harvested. That is one of the golden rules of these areas, to never over-harvest for the sake of a few extra kilos of tea. Balance, so difficult to achieve upon much of the glutted globe, here finds itself simply because it has been left to its own reasonable devices.

The light breeze that shoots through the forests comes from the northwest, where Burma’s line of mountains funnels weather systems down. Here in these active green forests, little moves that isn’t natural and tea would be hard pressed to find a better home…and I sometimes wonder if I wouldn’t be content withering my days away, taking in teas and the scented winds in this sanctuary for the senses.

Hours later, I am stuffed into a favorite tea house, back in Menghai, along with some of the tea that needs tasting, Ban Pun. With all of my senses now activated (barring the one crucial sense of taste) I must sip some of the goodness I saw in the village and its forests. Gathered, as always, in the tea shop, is a collection of friends, family, and neighbors. Chatter is going strong and there are many ‘requests’ of what teas to serve, but the tea of the hour will be Ban Pun. The dried leaves look discreet, understated, and entirely anemic, but with the addition of boiling water they will explode into their full shape and release their scented water.

The tea hostesses (there is a rotating policy…whenever the seat is empty for more than two minutes another body occupies the vital pouring role) go on about how Ban Pun is as good as many of the classics at a fraction of the price. My excitement is internal and I keep it there for the time being. There are few calamities in my own life worse than the expectation of a great tea hitting the taste buds, only for it to fade away or simply limply die in the mouth.

A first look at the leaves as they are inundated with water shows a clear copper color and the smell fires up the nasal passages to impart a sharp tang. It is a newly picked tea (within three months) so the mouth – regardless of anything else – will be hit with a vegetal blast that new teas inevitably carry. The first cup confirms that the tea is bitter in that ‘new’ tea way. Its fresh, pungent elements are all there for the mouth to take in. There is no hiding the teas’ force, but this is where the maker of the tea and a great producer come into play. By preparing similar amounts of tea, and using an identical temperature and method, a tea master or server can judge a tea’s aroma and taste consistently. Besides the maker or server, a producer’s value cannot be overstated either, as it is the producer who controls the ‘preparation’ of tea that is the final stage before tea is consumed. It is here, at this dividing or production point, that a good tea can descend into becoming a bad tea, or inversely (and hopefully) can become a great tea.

Whatever the bitter blast that is conjured by the first sip of tea, the Ban Pun finishes with a lingering trail of sweetness in the throat and it continues this way for the next 7 infusions. Debates inevitably start about the tea’s qualities, with two of our tea group claiming, that while a great tea, they have never heard of it so it must not be ‘that good’. This is one of the x-factors with tea: that one doesn’t have to have heard of it at all for it to be a great tea. In fact, it kind of adds a mysterious gloss to the leaves in question. The Ban Pun is for my buds a classic that will age beautifully, with tannins smoothing out the vegetal blasts; even now, with the tea at its astringent pinnacle, it is a tea that grips the mouth and then gently lets it go. Its’ clean strength warrants a longer investigation…which in my own way of thinking equates to buying a couple of kilograms to sip in my own time in as ridiculously large quantities as I choose.

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GABA An ‘Enhanced’ Tea

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Jeff Fuchs

Old tea mate, Luo, sits in front of me in a tea shop in Dali, in western central Yunnan, wearing a familiar impassive expression. Good teas for him are about facts, and he doesn’t suffer the same pangs of romance with the leaves that I do. Today, he is the tea purist talking up the high points of a slightly high-tech tea, GABA, a tea which in some ways works against the ‘tea as stimulant’ idea that he has happily carried around for so long. He speaks in earnest, knowing full well what my cynic’s look means…that I am cynical.

Neddy is always exacting, but one of his saving graces is that his animation – which increases with amounts of tea consumed – is like a fire that spreads. When he is consuming a good tea, the room warms up with his joy…though he never loses his fine tuned focus.

For me there is an instinctive recoiling any further manipulation of that which I hold so dear, but my friend Luo is unapologetic about this new “enhancement” to tea. He is one of the few people among the many charlatans of the tea world who actually understands tea from both a scientific point of view and that of an intense and committed taker of tea.

The tea I am looking at is identical to a nice tightly rolled Bi Luo Chun green or even an Oolong. No signs of any additions to the beautiful asymmetry of the leaves. They remain coiled, ready and completely benign. I wonder at their little bodies and how their alteration (I still view them as somehow impure) and ‘induced’ properties have affected their taste and their necessary ability to stimulate.

GABA, (g-aminobutyric acid) is (and it is here that Luo’s explanation deepens the frown on my face) an amino acid and a vital neurotransmitter of the body, that among other things prevents the arteries, veins and capillaries from contracting. While having a similar effect on the muscles, the result is that the entire body benefits from an increase in blood circulation and an easing of tension. Though GABA naturally occurs in small amounts in any high grade tea, the artificial increase of GABA levels by the ever-innovative Japanese in the 1980′s, by adding nitrogen, found itself being transferred into the obsessive world of tea. GABA has been used to treat insomnia, epilepsy and even narcolepsy…and it now sits before me.

In my mind, tea, – good tea at least – contains enough natural-born elements that it doesn’t need outside manipulations or obstructions to enhance it. I see it as a gadget, though admittedly I know very little.

While all of this new information about GABA is convincing (only because it is coming from Luo’s mouth, who I trust) my wariness remains.

We finally get to the point where I the doubter and he the proponent will get to sip the tea in question. While there are three GABA teas laid out before us, he picks the curled leaves on my far left.

Luo has actually been part of a project to create GABA teas out of high quality ‘green’ tea. The tea he picks up and prepares is a Spring harvest which has ‘taken’ the GABA treatment the most successfully. When I ask what success means, Luo’s patient face gives away nothing, saying only, “the highest levels of nitrogen were achieved”. I can only wonder at how the precious leaves have suffered.

“The ‘best’ tea is picked in the early morning and ideally enjoys high day temperatures and low overnight temperatures – high altitudes are ideal – as the tea leaves by day absorb more nitrogen and lose less during the cold nights”.

With Luo, information is always imparted this way, almost clinically, but never with an arrogance. His knowledge is complete and seldom biased…mine on the other hand is almost always influenced by the source of a tea and my perpetual thirst.

After picking, the tea is left to dry and soften for a few hours and is then dumped into an airtight cask. A vacuum sucks the oxygen out and nitrogen is pumped in for a set amount of time (the little bit of information regarding how long is not imparted as the world of tea, like that of food, is rife with ‘secrets’). The rest of the process is exactly what a ‘regular’ green tea goes through.

The tea before me, being competently prepared, is from over two thousand meters, nullifying the need for nasty sprays. It is the ungainly stems and the nubile green end-buds that typically carry the highest natural levels of GABA.

“The sour smell and taste of GABA tea is an indicator of high amounts or levels…it is also what has prevented GABA tea from becoming popular thus far in China”. This sourness that he speaks of comes sifting into my nostrils. While most here in Yunnan who take tea don’t mind a bitterness, sour is not something normally part of tea vocabulary.

This sour tea smell isn’t unpleasant; it smells as though someone has mixed a good green tea with something vinegary, and for whatever reason the nose seems contentedly curious. My hackles raise in protest, but only just…there is something easy to like about the smell.

Sips, and especially first sips, hint at what is to come but by no means nail down a tea and its qualities (or lack thereof).  However,  the first sip of the Spring GABA is a nice stimulator hitting several regions of the mouth at once. Though nitrogen enters the body with every breath, and is vital for the cardiovascular system, the immune system, and the central nervous system, it is GABA (the gamma-aminobutyric acid) which apparently creates the feeling of relaxation. For the cynic in me, it is the tea that is important & impresses, rather than the apparent qualities or turbo-charged elements it contains.

Ensuing cups later, the tea hasn’t lost any of its strengths or subtleties and the mind is slowly being eased into this GABA ‘way’. A second GABA, a recent autumn harvest, is far sweeter and actually leaves the tongue wondering if there is more to come. If this is in fact the GABA levels influencing the taste, the higher levels do seem to come closer to pleasing my ever impatient palate.

“As with all teas, it is the base tea quality that is most important”, Luo reminds me. Part of any essential tea drinkers ‘must remembers’, this bit of information often gets passed over.

While any tea retains its inherent levels of GABA better if served cold, we are using cold as opposed to hot water to infuse with. Luo is on a roll now and my cynical look must have disappeared as he is now peppering me with information. Without warning (and there rarely is with Luo) at one point he proffers up a bit of essential and spontaneous ‘Luoist’ brilliance: “When I first tried GABA, I couldn’t stand it, but in time I began to need a daily dose”.

Later that night, fearing the predictable sleeplessness due to the stunning amounts of tea consumed (of which GABA was only one), my phone rings. It’s Neddy.

“You will sleep well tonight – guaranteed”. Much as I would have liked to have told him otherwise, I was in a mood to just hibernate, and he knew this precisely, with GABA and its apparent effects having softened the intense bliss of a tea high.

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Kunming’s “Jin Shing” Tea Market – A Green-Fed Chaos

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Jeff Fuchs

Yunnan or ‘yun’nan’, to locals and Han Chinese is exactly translated as ‘south (nan) of the clouds (yun)’. It is a geography that takes a certain pride in its priorities of life and in its frontier history. Food, mountains, drink, and an ability to slow things down a bit when the world around endeavors to speed things up, are all part of the Yunnan weave. Only formally taken into the Chinese ‘fold’ during the reign of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty in the 13th Century, this region, in its time, had been ruled by indigenous Yi and Bai peoples; it had been a kind of penal colony for the Dynasties’ rougher elements, and a vital trade and transport hub along the South Silk Road and the Ancient Tea Horse Road. It is also still known for its smuggling and tight mountain passages that wander through a thousand valleys. Throughout all of this interesting and life-giving change, it has hosted ancient tea trees and some of the most colorful and intense tea markets anywhere – tea being one of those few luxuries seemingly shared by all within the province. I was once told that Yunnan was “the province that runs on the slowest wheels in China”…something must have clicked, because Yunnan, with its indigenous-heavy flavour of food, pace and slightly exotic essence, is, for most of every year, my home.

Yunnan’s provincial capital of Kunming was widely considered a ‘hardship’ posting by political administrators of the past, though today the city seems to lie somewhere between its ‘eternal spring city’ moniker and ‘striving to become bigger and bigger still’. Kunming does, however, hold a gem of the ancient world…a proper tea market, a cha chang. It should at the very least…it is the ‘tea province’ after all.

Fifteen minutes outside Kunming’s ever-widening downtown bustle, any taxi driver worth his shoes will get you to the ostentatiously named Jin Shing (Gold Star) Cha Chang.

My own taxi driver (and his shoes) gets me to the arches announcing the imminent entry into an unofficial tea zone. Along the same main street, but falling under the shadow of the market, lie a supporting cast of tea table shops, tea wrapping shops, water boiler shops specifically for tea, tea cup shops – an entire service industry paying homage to the green leaf.

Rain squalls bend this way and that in the grey air and surfaces are covered in a summer sheen of fresh rain. There is that narcotic waft of rain hitting hot asphalt floating about. Every step further into the tea market might prove anticlimactic to the first time visitor or anyone expecting an ornate and cerebral worship to tea’s delicate and often over complicated habits. Here, very little ceremony is paid to anything beyond that which makes a good pot of tea, and a sale.

This is a rough and ready wholesale tea market where bulk tea is sold and where a surprising jumble of stunning teas can be had for very little money. Tourists don’t often make it out here, which instantly qualifies it for special status. The less the fuss, the more likely it is to be a good tea…in these parts at least.

Jin Shing itself is a huge block of alleys with vans, boxes and shops running riot with tea in shapes and consistencies. Everything from bulk produced teas for mass market (which aren’t necessarily the worst teas) to classic, genuine old teas that the odd buyer might give an appendage for – me for instance.

Outside the market area, cargo vans and trucks wait in the same spot every day for their turn to make deliveries of the eternal green. On some days, tons of tea are transported within their cargo holds; on other days, ‘mere’ kilos are whisked away aboard scooters. Credit cards are rarely accepted. Tea is still a commodity whose value is in instant cash…in one case, while peeking at a ledger, I saw a column of names all with red checks beside them – every name represented a fully paid up customer. Product for money – no debts, no IOU’s – part of an older more tangible world, when things were on the table and clearer.

Part of the joy in being amidst wall-to-wall tea is the informality with which this vibrant leaf is treated – not that it isn’t appreciated – it is everything and more to its handlers and sellers, but the fact is that tea is still something entirely of and for this world. Women outside of shops sort the riff from the raff. Piles of tea sit in silent, waiting heaps, their future destinations yet to be decided.

During my errant wanderings (and incessant slurping) through the market alleys, I find some great bargains, with the added bonus of meeting sellers who aren’t interested so much in conning you as they are in impressing you. Kunming (as with many big cities in mainland China) is rife with tea shops hustling gorgeously wrapped, opulently served teas, poured by young women whose knowledge and skill in tea’s ‘real’ qualities is next to none…and of course the real tragedy is that the teas they are procuring are often complete frauds. Here in the un-fancy market areas, most sellers are delighted to serve any tea that one fancies and chat the day away. Spend enough time in one shop and a meal will be served to counter balance the enormous (and coveted ‘buzz’) from all of the tea consumed. In one tea fed frenzy of liquid lust, a bulk tea seller excitedly leads me into a small room tucked behind his cash station and I stop dead.

On a hastily assembled shelf lie a series of tea ‘tubes’ – appearing misshapen and almost dusty – row after row of genuinely old tea that has aged naturally over time, without the artificial ‘turbo-charged’ fermentation process most commonly used in the present incarnations of ‘shou’ (cooked/fermented black Puer). My host tells me that this little room is only “available” for those who actually know an old tea. Once a week on a designated night, he tells me, his buddies come over to crack a wedge off and share his good ‘old tea’ fortune. He and I both have the pinpoint eyes and rib-cage sweats of those in the throes of tea ecstasy. The subject of old tea gets my host into a veritable froth.

Unlike the trend of accumulating and drinking old tea, which has gripped and confused an already complicated and often ignorant marketplace, this sort of consumption amongst friends (who can actually determine a genuine old tea) is a tribute to the old ways of sharing. When I query the seller about old tea, he can’t quite keep the sneer off his face and states with a nice bit of venom, “Most people wouldn’t know an old tea if they bathed in it”.

Teas that are genuinely old and aged are rare and guarded. They often appear to be ‘rotten’, or entombed in their own imperfections of shape, but in a little bit of wonderful irony, it is these that are most often the legitimate heirs to the term, “old tea”. If one was to believe what one sees and hears in tea shops, one would think that every second shop has a thirty or fifty-year-old tea simply lying around errantly waiting for the masses to realize its virtues…not so. Genuine old teas are whisked off to safe houses to be consumed or gloated about – not left lying around casually.

Needing something bitter to reactivate the tongue cells, I look for a burst of something green and unfermented, and find a corner tea stall with its teas spread out like spices for inspection. Flattened leaves, balled and coiled leaves, roasted, toasted and fried leaves all claim their small spaces on nearby plates.

Minutes later I have inevitably defaulted to a nicely astringent unfermented Pu’erh, and minutes after that, I leave with two bags of ‘goods’ tucked under my arm (and one in my backpack), including a wrinkled little bag with a hunk of ‘old’ dusty tea. ‘Never leave empty’ is as complete a philosophy as I can think of in the world of tea.

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The Pot of Pots for the Sip of Sips

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Jeff Fuchs

The simple western ‘teapot’ – whether it be ceramic or porcelain, elongated or pudgy – would hold little interest to even the most modest of tea drinkers in Asia. Teapots in Asia are, even for those of modest means, something that can and often do define a tea drinker.

A miniscule pot wrapped carefully in a red ribbon, sitting in a tea shop in Taiwan or Fujian, denotes another world, a deeper form of commitment to tea and its taking. Pots, wrapped in a red ribbon, are the equivalent of a staked claim; a pot whose owner is ‘out of town’; a pot that will not be touched by another hand or another tea, until its owner is back.

The birth of delicate purple-sand clay pots from Yixing came with the passing age of powdered teas’ (originating in China but precisely maintained in Japan) and the emergence (or re-emergence) of whole leaf tea. While the procedure for producing little works of art to hold tea began in the Song Dynasty, it wasn’t until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD) that the whole leaf tea tide turned entirely, expediting the need for precise serving vessels.

My own collection, that began 10 years ago, somewhat contradicts my deep belief that less is more – that only the tools that add to a tea’s final taste are crucial. Ceremony, while important, should ultimately bend to function…at least in the world of tea. Tea’s final ‘taking’ and taste is what should be the end goal. Over the years, however, more than 50 Yixing pots have in various ways found their way into my life…to stay.

Much of Yixing’s legend lies in the constitution of clay that is mined in Yixing, deep in China’s southeast. Lead free (though consisting of metals), the clay in fired form is able to remain unglazed. Unglazed, the clay’s other great quality comes into play: its porous surface. Here the eternal brilliance of the Yixing clay becomes undeniable. Every teapot can and will absorb the flavours of a particular tea…but (and the but is a significant ‘but’), one teapot will only know or host one kind of tea in its lifetime, over time becoming imbibed with a tea’s essences – one Yixing tea pot for one tea.

During my own acquisition of a particular pot in the mountains of Taiwan – an apricot sized burnt-coloured piece – the owner (who was himself almost as old as the 90 year old pot) warned me to “never defile the pot with anything other than a high mountain Oolong from Taiwan”.

Later, when I had the gall to ask about “other” Oolongs being served in it, his rasping voice rose in indignation telling me in no uncertain terms that I would have to acquire another pot to serve “other” Oolong teas. One pot for one tea – a Yixing pot rule that has remained through the ages.

To add yet another layer of weighty knowledge to the proceedings, he then informed me that my tiny pot was one of the select and rare ‘zhu ni’ pots – a kind of clay that experienced a high level of shrinkage.

Ornate doesn’t even begin to describe some of the billowing shapes and outrageously garish designs, but true to tea’s undying ‘truth’ – simplicity – the most valued of all Yixing teapots (and many run into the tens of thousands of dollars) are most often the simplest and most subtle. So craved and so deep is the tradition with these sacred tea servers, that within the Yixing ‘fraternity’ there are separate tea designations for the ‘master potter’ and the ‘clay master’. While a potter may achieve a demi-god status and wealth, the clay master is held in the light of the sun for his/her abilities to conjure up the supplest clays for working with.

“Lunacy” is how one friend of mine described the amount of detail, minutiae and terminology associated with Yixing clay pots. His comments came after I was schooled in the act of ‘seasoning’ another pot that I fell for. The sifu (master) directed me to decide there and then what sort of tea I would be using the pot for – the clays of Yixing take fully boiled water, which limits the teas that are available to fermented black Puerhs, and semi-fermented Oolongs, or any other tea that finds itself suitably oxidized. When I decided that Oolongs would be the tea of choice for that pot, the master directed me to keep the pot immersed in an Oolong (changing the immersion bath once every day) for a month to inundate the pores of the pot with the essence of the particular tea.

Calligraphy of famous poets, ornate spouts, and chops pressed into the base of the pot and handles all speak to an art form that matches a tea fanatic’s ultimate need to drink. The hand-making of a ‘simple’ base version of a Yixing pot – a pot that would look very like any other tea pot in a mass market – can include more than 130 carefully measured steps, from the acquisition of the clay, the removing of air bubbles, to the boring of holes in the pot…a puritan’s art is never properly appreciated, but in the world of tea.

During the Yixing pot’s history there were times when a drinker would prepare and consume the tea from the very pot’s spout, creating a harmony and simplification of consumption. Cups, though important for a modern view of tea, were viewed by some to be one more unnecessary step between preparation and that precious sip.

Reassuringly, however, beyond the hype, shapes and vocabulary, which stun the senses, the words of an old tea mentor ring truest, ”for a cup of tea one needs a great tea, a great pot, some water, and a thirst, and that is all”.

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Tea’s Eternal Traveling Shape’s’

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Jeff Fuchs

Tea with its stimulant strengths and tongue grabbing tangs was one of the great exports within Asia, long before Europeans were heralding it and obsessing over its arrival aboard schooners. Its transport necessitated more efficient methods of ‘condensing’ the actual leaves – 50 kg’s of loose leaf tea (san cha) never made for space-efficient travel aboard a mule or yak’s flanks, whereas 50 kg’s of compacted bricks or cakes would travel with ease. The loose leaf teas that sat in sacks and exited the hulls of schooners were often the barely recognized husks and particles of their former selves.

Back when tea was reportedly ‘officially’ introduced en masse to the Tibetan plateau in the T’ang Dynasty (vis-a-vis a dowry of Princess Wencheng on her betrothal to Songtsan Gampo), it was mule loads of loose-leaf green tea that made the journey. The ensuing waves and caravans of tea, however, would transport another form of compact teas, a method that many say existed for centuries already in the southwestern indigenous strongholds of what is now southwestern China.

Tea’s journeys to the frontier regions (which in history occupied far more of ‘China’ than at present) increased in amounts as tea’s status as a political tool widened and worked. Tea reverted in shape back to one of its most ancient forms – molded bricks, tubes, and cakes – as it was far more economical and efficient. It was also a far more effective way of hiding a tea’s pedigree (or lack thereof).

As the ancient Dynasties of China used tea to forge alliances, sate cravings and protect its borders, tea and its transport became of national security as well as an economic powerhouse. The borderlands of Mongolia, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Tibet would see caravans laden with tea passing through their landscapes without end. Great market towns rampant with activity, lined the most remote steppes, and tea was amongst the most prized products available…but the tea arriving here was not of the loose leaf variety but rather rough shaped molds of tea that had semi-oxidized or fermented on its long journey. As the distribution of tea expanded throughout the T’ang Dynasty, so too arrived an actual tax and a tax was more easily levied on formed compact bricks with pre-set weights and shapes than with the loose delicate leaves.

Hulking shapes of tea became a commodity in themselves, but were focused on different proposed ‘targets’. Different shapes were sent (and required) for different peoples. For the remote and hardened peoples of the frontiers the shape mattered not; what was important was that it arrived at all with a taste. Tea as tribute, destined for emperors, acolytes and political leaders, was usually far more ornate and decorative – and the molded results resembled gourds, squash, even fruit. Elaborately shaped tea formed into celebrated animals, deities and even geographical points of significance were also presented as gifts. Tea as tribute became as much about the tea mold maker or the garish artistry of the tea cake as it did about the quality of the tea.

To this day, many teashops within China are adorned with wall plaques that are molded tributes of tea…though most are barely drinkable. Tea shapes were even developed for specific events, only to become the equivalent of collector’s items. ‘Pan’ or ‘Ban’ Cha, was a mushroom shaped mold that was made as gift to the Panchen Lama and to this day is sought out as a kind of tea-treasure by collectors and drinkers alike.

Salt, spice, coffee and cocoa were all used as tributes, and in time, were considered currencies in themselves – so too was tea. The difference with tea was that it was being shaped and changing shape to suit markets. So dominant was it as a trade commodity that it soon surpassed both silk and ceramics as the dominant item out of Asia and some of its shapes bordered on the exotic.

As ornate and complex as the molds and shapes of tea were to become, the preparation of the tea for such forms was simple – the origins of which ‘stem’ back to an ancient indigenous practice of southern Yunnan. After picking the leaves, the supple greens would be steamed, making them more pliant. The result would then be crushed and formed into cakes or molds. Finally, it would be air dried, ready for a long wait, a long journey or both. This formed or compressed tea is called Jin ya cha and this ‘style’ still resonates and exists today, bringing to mind tea that traveled. Ironically, the very process of steaming leaves that softened them for manipulation, also removed much of the bitterness. It was this steaming process that ultimately transformed tea from a bitter tonic into a far subtler beverage.

Once these shaped and formed tea cakes, & bricks arrived, they were cooked rather than infused. The practice of cooking tea leaves exists to this day in many of the more remote kingdoms of wind and stone. Chunks are thrown into boiling water for minutes, rather than brief infusing swims. The formed teas were also conducive to cultures where war and weather didn’t allow for the comfort (or time) of tea ceremonies. The cakes were broken into pots, pans and vats with little attention given to preparation times. The point was to wring as much goodness and bitter zip out of the leaves as possible with as little formality as necessary. Tea in cake form, destined for the frontier badlands of the west and north, was not about anything aesthetic. It was about giving a gift that was a potent energizer to impress and satisfy. A food to temper diets heavy in proteins and carbohydrates, tea was the perfect foil and remains to this day an essential in whatever shape it appears.

Puer/Pu’erh tea was the first tea to travel ‘en-masse’ along the great tea trails and trade routes and it is still the one tea that is consistently created and formed into ‘shapes’. Tea in shaped form ages differently, benefiting or being stimulated by the fact that it has been crushed and compressed together, creating different enzyme reactions and different ‘tangs’.

It stands as an endearing testament to the history of formed teas that sales of the ‘archaic’ tea cakes, bricks and various other shapes continue to flourish. For all of the change in production methods, the ever expanding tea market, and the methods of measuring out servings and types of tea, the simple shapes that were once used exclusively for travel are still with us…waiting for their turn to be thrown into the water.

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Bada: Yunnan’s Unsung Puer

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Jeff Fuchs

Bada Mountain exists as part geographical divider and part ultimate tea sanctuary – a rolling space of green that is lush, benefits from the monsoon’s wet visits, and has quietly been producing teas for as long as anyone can remember. These mountains within mountains above the Burma border in southern Yunnan, have long hosted cultivated gardens and wild tea forests – forests that create catechin-laden teas famed for bitterness and vegetal potency. Wild tea forests are the equivalent of lighting the fuse of lust in the mind of a true tea drinker and this region (and Bada in particular) boasts many of these tea forests.

It is this region, “one can find the largest quantities of affordable and good quality teas”, as one tea buyer from southern Yunnan’s Jinghong city put it.

Spring season is the inaugural tea season and I have quite deliberately found myself here. The coveted Spring teas are being harvested, an expectant market waits to see the quality and quantity of the yield, and I am quietly expectant, waiting to sate my own rampant thirst. Bada’s reliability in producing both high yields and consistent (and almost predictable) teas season after season have kept it one of the “better known of the lesser known” tea mountains producing Puers.

Cool wet skies have poured damp on the land this spring and the normally temperate hills and sweat inducing vapors have given way to blue gray winds from the north. Bada Mountain itself is encased in cold mists and its prime 1500 meter forests lie almost hidden from view. Harvests are coming in slightly later due to the cold, but as a local Hani woman Mei, tells me, “late harvests often mean better teas”.

Cold blue rains have scoured the entire forest clean, and the gleam of huge serrated tea leaves sparkle everywhere. My walk into these mountains has led me to a path where I literally have to part the fogs, and as I pass through those same fogs, quickly re-envelope the route that I pass along. The forests are alive with the faint ghostly figures of the harvesters. It is important to see the source of all the green goodness that I will later imbibe in a town with no name.

A day later, I arrive at the in-between, not-quite-a-town, with no name. I have come to sip, drink and taste. The town is one of those tea-gathering points of southern Yunnan that doesn’t even have a name. Instead it is simply known as ‘Bada’. Towns in the area often do this in a kind of desperation to have their name associated with the mountain that is the base for such goodness, rather than a village name that no one will ever remember.

When a load of 300 kg’s of Bada green goodness comes on the back of a hybrid tractor encased in dirty beige bags, I join a horde of local tea buyers whose eyes have lit with an abnormal intensity as they snort, chortle and pick through the bags. Vehicles like this, laden with leaves, are all along the Bada range, and are headed toward the bigger tea market towns, such as Mengla or Menghai.

The yields this year are very good, though the harvests are late. For the tea locals and the people who consume liters of tea a day the tea is studied with something close to a somber obsession – razor sharp eyes, fingers handling, a prodding nose inhaling and then repeating the entire process. A Bada Puer in unfermented form should be bitter but not overwhelming; it should be vegetal and absolutely green tasting, and the coveted wild tree teas produce without a doubt the best teas of every season.

Tea’s from any region carry the hints and tangs of their geographic homes. High ph levels, south facing mountains, degree of drainage, and the production methods all contribute in some way to the sip that is finally taken. All great teas are identifiable rather than ambiguous – they carry a mark, a signature of sorts, something which sets them apart from other teas.

Bada Mountain can claim one of the oldest tea trees on the planet with some putting one ancient tea tree at almost 2,000 years, though it no longer is producing tea. It has become a tourist drawing point more than anything. Regardless of age, the notion that Bada has produced teas for a small eternity continues to do it no harm in tea circles. Local indigenous peoples have attributed many health-giving properties to tea as long as it has been around and many, like the Hani people, believe that the very bitterness that most westerners find so assaulting (and insulting) to the palate is a sign of quality and potent life giving properties.

Among tea’s heralded uses for the indigenous peoples, the most common references are balancing the body’s core temperature, benefiting headaches and drowsiness, expelling excess heat from the body, aiding with kidney or gallstones, and acting as a general tonic to the liver and pancreas. In fact, tea in this region can easily be called the great ‘healer’, so numerous are its alleged benefits, many of which are now proving to be correct.

Sitting in a tea shop in the town of Menghun, I am graced with the presence of resident live-wire and fervent advocate of Bada’s understated qualities, Wei. Wei is somewhere in her 40’s but refuses to say anything about her age other than to claim that her tea consumption has kept her “feeling and looking as though she is in her twenties” – it is a claim that I do not pursue nor comment on for fear of encouraging her significant amounts of energy to turn on me. Another tea maven turned me on to her years ago and I am now just meeting her for the first time. She is a devotee of Bada teas, claiming a dozen times in an animated hour that it is the tea that is an “ignored classic”. Her point, which is made with a succession of violent sweeping gestures, is that simply because Bada Mountain’s teas are available in significant amounts (and by extension reasonably priced),they aren’t often desired with such raging obsession as say a Laubanzhang, Jingmai or Hu Kai. As a little aside later in the conversation, she points to a large potted plant in the corner, and as I look I see that used tea leaves line the soil in the pot. “Even used tea leaves have a use as fertilizer…it is Bada Tea”.

At this point, I know I am in the capable though jittery hands of a true tea maniac…and there is some comfort in that.

I have long thought that a good Bada tea was a ‘sleeper’; a tea that gently slipped under the radar screen of Puer tea ‘aficionados’ . Whether a question of snobbery, ignorance or simple taste, I knew not, but what was clear was that there would never ‘not’ be enough delicious (and affordable) Bada in a given year and for that alone it deserved respect.

My hostess Wei – after a considerable amount of time spent simultaneously commiserating with me, berating fake ‘old teas’ and their proprietors alike, lambasting clients’ general ignorance of tea, and waxing eloquent about Bada – is finally ready to serve some of the tea in question.

In my experiences in teahouses in this part of the world, I know that one must be patient and allow the tea masters some theatrical performances before actually consuming anything. It is afterall a free tasting and in my mind this gives the procurer and server some drama. Some people come to cha guan (tea houses) for tea, many more for the social aspects….I have come for tea but been swept up in Wei’s dynamic personality. My paranoia though is on high alert as I know that regardless of the extroverted and delightful ramblings of Wei, my day will be decided upon whether or not the tea itself sings to me or not.

Wei at last gets down to the preparation of a first and very needed serving of green unoxidized Bada Puer. Pausing for effect and to reemphasize the point, she points to the loose leaves next to her “This is Bada Old tree tea”. This reference to a tea’s age gets muddled in the tea world.

When people speak of an “old tea”, they refer to the number of years a particular tea has been in its dried and processed form – whether it be in loose, brick, log, nest or cake form. This differs from an “old tree tea” which can be freshly picked, but is harvested from a centuries old tree.

Most tea drinkers in southern Yunnan care far less about the age of a particular tea than they do about how old the source tea tree or bush is. The sacred old tea trees are almost never sprayed or overharvested and are loaded with all the compounds and catechins that make it such a bittersweet joy.

So, when Wei tells me of this “old tea tree” tea I do feel a ripple of excitement. Gingerly taking a handful of some of those giant and oddly shaped leaves, she nestles them into the rinsed flared ceramic serving cup (gai wan) and covers them with the lid. After shaking the leaves within the heated gai wan, she offers me the opportunity to smell the dried leaves, releasing hints of what is to come.
“Sweet, sun-dried-hay” is the first thought, which then moves into a slightly more green waft as I take in more breaths.

Wei, thankfully, has become near silent, issuing only some chirps and grunts as she prepares the first rinse. Pouring fully boiled water over the roughly 10 grams of tea (she has loaded the serving cup with leaves that almost spill out. Locals prepare pungent and strong tea preferring more leaves and less infusion times rather than economizing on leaves and increasing infusion times). They can afford this as their access to vast quantities of great teas is enviable.

Filling the serving cup almost recklessly until waters spills over. A light froth forms on the surface, which Wei efficiently wipes off with the cover before resting the lid on the tea for 15 seconds. This bitter froth, a combination of unwanted bitterness and any impurities, forms with the first rinse, never to appear again.

That first unwanted rinse is used to clean and heat our minute cups before us. A second rapid infusion is poured into the tea leaves. Another fifteen seconds and I am inhaling sharp and brilliantly hot slurps in rapid succession of our Bada unfermented Puer.

The heat cannot diminish the bitter green that hits the teeth and underside of the tongue. Florals swirl in the mouth at the same time as an astringent strain swims around. Add to all of this a faint trace of vegetal and then down the hatch it finishes sweet.

Wei has been transformed into an almost sage-like ‘giver of tea’, and I am grateful not to have to comment on the tea yet, as she is already preparing the second ‘drinkable’ infusion which will tell us much more.

The second and third infusions course through the mouth and finish much as the first infusion, but somehow smoother. Bada tea’s ability to have consistent flavor wrung out of it time and time again is its great strength. Wei’s energy ramps up again, excited as she is over the endless shots of tea that have already been consumed, and the shots of tea yet to come.

Four hours, a meal, and several visitors later, Bada’s great strengths are summed up by Wei, “It is not a beauty at first sight, but its qualities catch up with you”…..”like me”….she adds. It is time to depart…but not without a 2 kg bag of Bada under my arm.

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Butter Tea – A Food, A Fuel

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Jeff Fuchs

Much maligned and spoken of with a kind of fear of what may happen to the digestive organs, butter tea for many rests in that distant category of “beverage that is interesting but I will not consume”.

For the Tibetans upon the plateau and throughout the valleys of Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai, it remains much more than a stimulant beverage – it is nothing less than a necessary food.

During the great days of caravan trade, two items were of enduring and consummate value: tea and salt. With these two commodities one could trade for any item. Tea and salt were currencies in themselves and it is perhaps more than a little ironic that both elements make their appearance in the preparation of what is known to Tibetans as ‘pu jia’ (Tibetan tea).

Butter, another constant in most rural Tibetan life, unfortunately gets the ‘plaudits’ for its addition of fatty pungency. For many it is this element, which sparks rebellion (or the thought of it) in the intestines and gall bladder.

My journey to the tiny village of Chun De (two hours north of ‘Shangrila’ in northwestern Yunnan) to speak to an old trader, wandered along a road that seemed at times to have no place further to go. The landscapes around me shimmered with barley fields and were marked by plunging valleys and all of this was striated and split by dirt paths that climbed only to disappear into the sky.

The area had long been a stopping point along the famed Tea Horse Road, a route that for thirteen unending centuries ushered tea and goods into the highest plateau on the planet. Tea, for many, was the import/export of choice.

The ancient trader whose name was ‘He’ (pronounced like huh), had a spotless home and yard with a random collection of rampaging goats and lean chickens that seemed intent on rioting. ‘He’ slept in a single bed that was home to books, clothes, and it seemed all of the old man’s worldly belongings. In fact, as I looked on, I wasn’t at all sure where he actually found room to lie. The old trader and medicine man had the lean and ascetic features of one who took from life only the bare minimum – hollowed cheeks, a fine nose, and eyes that missed nothing. His eyes had a dark fire in them, and I noticed with a kind of warmth that he absently tried to fix hair which still held onto its natural black color, although ‘He’was somewhere in his seventies.

His hands were enormous and hung like axes at his lean side as he welcomed me in. This noting of his hands wasn’t random for I had always noticed that these old traders regardless of body size, inevitably carried around over-sized cleavers for hands.

One of the first things a Tibetan home will offer when guests arrive is tea and the words “jia tong”, or “drink tea” will be heard within minutes of any arrival.

“He” looked at me and whispered that something stronger was also on offer if tea or “jia” wasn’t preferred. “Arra” or whisky is another offering but it and its subsequent consumption don’t have a place here.

Butter tea is, and was, in many Tibetans’ view, the perfect food for the heights. Yak butter, high in amino acids, proteins and vitamins, provides much needed calories in altitudes that burn them in huge amounts. The preferred tea for the Tibetans was anything with ‘bitter bite’, known as “kabow”. Teas from southern Yunnan or their lighter cousins from Sichuan, found in brick form, were preferred, but any tea would do. Salt’s addition was to provide a bit of tang and sodium, which was also needed. Electrolytes, carbohydrates and many of tea’s vegetal benefits found lacking in Tibetans’ diets in one soupy concoction: a food.

My host and his powerful little wife bid me to sit in an almost pitch black kitchen, the entirety of which was a fire pit, some pots, and three truck seats placed on the floor around the fire. A chicken soup, also laden with butter, was simmering its sweet goodness into the air in wafts.

In a dark corner, layered high in an uneven stack, were bricks of tea and in seconds “He’s” wife had ripped an informal hunk of the brick off and thrown it into a pot of water that was burbling on the flames.

Next, a huge cylindrical wooden container is placed in front of Lhatse, “He’s” wife. Within this aged wooden container sits a long branch of wood with a flat disc on the end …a plunger-like instrument of sorts. A ball of fresh butter is grabbed from a wicker container and Lhatse shoves two fingers and a thumb into the cream coloured lump and this is placed into the wooden container. A small handful of salt is then thrown in to join the butter. While this is going on, “He” is a blur of activity and words. In addition to being a trader, he runs an unofficial (and free) clinic, treating local ailments with herbs that he still collects from the surrounding mountains.

“He” is muttering, smiling, treating a young man, and screaming at a nearby goat that seems intent on eating everything not nailed down.

Lhatse waits until the tea is boiling before pouring it into a small black earthen container. Then using a thistle branch as a kind of filter, she pours the tea into the large wood cylinder. The hot tea concoction breaks both butter and salt up and then the ‘action’ begins.

Lhatse uses the ‘plunger’-like instrument in a piston like motion to begin a ritual to break up and blend the three ingredients. This goes on for minutes until finally she is satisfied that justice has been done. Pouring the froth out into bowls it is time to consume.

“He” urges me to grab a bowl and takes his own silver-gilded wooden “purre”, cup, and takes a deep draw, uttering a small groan of contentment as he does so.

One interesting aspect of the tea that Tibetans crave and consume is that never before have they turned their noses up at stems or misshapen leaves. The stems, which populate most bricks of tea destined for the highlands (but scoffed at by some), are the conduits of tannins and minerals and contain that bitter flavor so desired by Tibetan drinkers. Appearances here in the mountains mean very little.

After many bowls have made it (and remained) down the gullet, Lhatse mentions to me that what is always important is that the elements are of good quality.  “Butter must be fresh, tea must be strong, and salt must always be used”.

“He” motions that it is time to move from the kitchen to his office, which was the yard. Grabbing a well-used and battered Pepsi bottle which was full of a clear and suspect liquid we sit in the sun. It is time to sip another famed beverage…one not of a leaf, but of a distilled grain.

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