Category Archives: People

Jian Shui

I hadn’t been to Jian Shui for more than four years and recently got the chance to go back there. Jian Shui, to the south of Fuxian Lake is a pottery town, renowned for its purple clay which is very dense and, after using a variety of techniques; throwing, carving, inlaying, is burnished using stones to give a high polish without the use of glaze.

Double Dragon Bridge is a few kilomteres outside Jian shui, an excellent example of Qing Dynasty (18th Century) architecture. At the confluence of two rivers – Lujiang and Tachong Rivers – it originally had 3 spans, but was later extended due to a change of course in the river.

Apart from its large city gate which is currently being renovated, Jian Shui is well known for it’s Daoist Temple, built in the style of the Qufu Confucian Temple in Shandong, during the 13th Century.

The Dao is Natural

Here’s a small teapot I acquired whilst there. Because of the process of making Jian Shui pottery, it is apparently rare for pots to be made by one individual, rather they are made by a number of people, each of whom specialises in a different skill. The image on the pot is made by first engraving the pot and then filling with different local clays which have unique colours.

purple clay jian shui tea pot

Conversations – on Wilting Shai Qing Mao Cha

The issues of wilting Puer tea, good and bad tea making processes, and the consequent suitability of a tea for ageing are perennial.

Tan Lao Shi is probably in her 50’s. She’s already retired. She grew up in Luo Shui Dong where her family have been tea farmers for several generations. Her childhood, up until her early teens was spent at Luo Shui Dong.

I asked her about how the tea making process of Puer now varies from when she was young and specifically about the weidiao process; Could she confirm that wilting fresh leaves before frying was a recent introduction in the Puer making process.

The idea, she said, is only from the late 80’s or early 90’s. Prior to that there wasn’t that thinking. But of course, the tea was wilted. Not to wilt the leaves; “zhe shi bu ke neng de.” – ‘It’s impossible the tea was not wilted.’ she says.

She went on to describe a typical day and the tea making process; after breakfast, around 8 a.m her family would go to their tea garden to pick leaves. “The garden was as far as from here to the school. Not far.” (Jinglan cha cheng to the local primary school – perhaps 100 metres) “They would pick tea until around 2pm, putting it in big baskets, then they would bring it back to the house. In the afternoon, they would go again and pick tea, up till maybe 8 at night.”

Tan described how only when the afternoon’s tea was brought back to the house, and the morning and the afternoon tea was put together would it be fried and rolled. In her estimate, at the very least, tea was left for 5 hours before frying; so, whether it was done unwittingly or not, the tea was wilted. In fact, the idea of picking a relatively small amount of tea and taking it back to the house to process immediately seemed implausible to her.

Her explanation for lack of historical evidence is that people wilted the tea unknowingly. They were just putting it to one side until they were ready to begin frying. There was no specific aim. She challenges me to find the words weidiao or tan qing in any literature. “There’s no mention of it because no one recorded the information, but it still happened.”

She went on to talk about how the tea was piled up and not spread out on mats as is the manner now and how, as children, they would jump into the big piles of tea which was fun, but because they were worried about their parents being angry when they returned to the house, they would sweep all the tea back up into a pile prior to their parents return. So this tea was most certainly oxidised.

She talked about how, prior to the early 50’s, they would pick tea fairly crudely, picking older leaves along with younger ones. After that (probably 1952-53) they would still not be selective in their picking, but when they took the tea back to the house they would separate out the older leaves from the younger tips and leaves – up to maybe tip and three leaves.

The tea made form these older leaves would be put in baskets after rolling, bamboo skins were placed on top and stones ( she described the kind of large stones that were used for sharpening knives) were placed on top of the bamboo skins to weigh them down. As a consequence the leaves were tightly compressed. This tea was left for two nights. “We used to put eggs in the tea. After three days the eggs were cooked.”

She also described making autumn tea and how the weather in Luo Shui Dong could be quite cold, but when they put their hands in the tea it was hot. On the third day this tea would be put out to dry. After handling it, their hands were ‘black’ from the tea.

I asked her what the tea broth looked like. “Not black like shou cha is now.” she said. “About the same colour as that.” and pointed to some tea in a ‘piao-yi-bei’ that had the colour of say a 4 or 5 year old raw tea – a brownish, ruby-red.

This ‘fermented’ tea was sold to an export company for export to Russia. Tan describes when she was a child how Russians came looking for tea. She said the Russians knew the difference between spring, summer and autumn tea, and would not buy the summer tea.

The tip and leaf formations from the process described above were not treated in the same way. After rolling they were shaken out and left till the next morning to be sun dried. This tea was typically given to local officials and the like.

Not for all the tea in China

Heading east out of Porto, following the River Duoro, one eventually moves out of the verdant lower reaches and moves up into the highlands that feel more like the North Yorkshire Moors than Portugal. By swinging north-east, one eventually arrives at Braganca, home of Catherine – her father was the Duke of Braganca – the Portuguese princess who married Charles II in 1662, and brought along her penchant for a nice cup of tea.

Tea was first brought to Europe in the early 1600’s, but, having been popularised by Catherine who arrived some 40 years later, by the late 19th Century, tea had ceased to be the luxury item it was at the time of it’s introduction.

‘Not for all the tea in China’ perhaps still alluded to the value of tea, but also, rather more the quantity.

The price of Puer, volatile as ever, reached a new height recently; someone brought us some Lao Ban Zhang Summmer tea (yu shui cha). It actually wasn’t bad, but at 1000 RMB a kilo it wasn’t very attractive. As HM said, “Why would you buy Lao Ban Zhang yu shui cha, when for half the price you could buy the very best Nan Nuo Shan Spring tea.”

Of course, compared to Longjin and what have you, Puer is still inexpensive. But, as Puer tea moves further and further away from being an agricultural product, to being a quality, hand-crafted tea, made by farmers who want to see their standards of living rise (even if that might mean, from many an outsider’s view at least, a decline in quality), and as they become increasingly connected to a larger society which has inflation that’s probably closer to 20% than most care to acknowledge. Who’s going to tell them ‘bu xing!’

Yunnan 'Dian Hong' (Nan Nuo Shan Tea Factory)

Nan Nuo Shan Cha Chang. The building on the right was one of the earlier to be built. The building lower down came later.

Hui People have a long history in Yunnan; associated with trade (hence tea), government and rebellion. From as early as the 8th century they dominated the trade routes throughout Yunnan and beyond.

During the Yuan and Ming Dynasties (1280-1644) they settled widely throughout the province, some moving into positions of power, but by the 19th Century (Qing Dynasty), conflict with Han Chinese saw many move into Burma (Myanmar). Under Du Wen Xiu – they established a Caliphate in Dali, only to be overthrown by the Han some years later. Important Hui settlements were established further south, particularly around Tong Hai and Jian Shui. In Xishuangbanna, Menghai had an early sizeable Hui population.

Bai Liang Cheng, know locally as Meng Yu was one such Yunnanese Hui man. He was born in 1893, attended a private school and, subsequently Yunnan School of Politics and Law.

By his late 30’s, Bai Meng Yu had been asked to become the head of the provincial government (under then Nationalist Government of Chiang Kai Shek), a post he declined, having no interest in politics. He was then appointed to work at Mo Hei Salt Works as an insurance officer, where he worked for two years or so.

In 1932 he was transferred to Puer Department of Taxation. In the course of work he travelled extensively throughout the region, visiting Fuhai (now Meng hai) Mengzhe, etc.

His interest in the area grew and he became intent on seeing the region develop economically. It was allegedly on these trips that he had the idea of setting up a tea factory: an idea he is said to have mooted to Liu Chong Ren, the then head of Yunnan Department of Finance, who had considerable faith in Bai, and endorsed the plan.

On the basis of this he travelled extensively throughout China to understand more about the tea market. Central to his plan was the idea of creating a modern, highly mechanised factory and, to this end he also visited Japan to learn about tea making.

On his return, he proposed his plan to the provincial government but, according to details from the time, the initial response was that the government ‘..would solely rely on taxes for revenue and not “eat the food off the beards of ordinary people”, and only in this way would a healthy, diversified economy develop.’

By the end of 1937 however, Liu had given his agreement to the establishment in Nan Qiao, Mengzhe of an experimental tea factory. It was to be called Yunnan Si Pu District Experimental Tea Factory. Bai Meng Yu was to be in charge.

In early 1938 the first stage was completed. Subsequently Bai was responsible for the planting of more than 100 mu of tea gardens in Nan Qiao.

Nan Nuo Shan, not far from Fuhai, where there were already extensive tea gardens was the site of the second phase. In April of that year the second factory was completed at Shi Tou Zhai in Nan Nuo Shan. Said by some to have been the most modern tea factory of it’s time, it was fitted with equipment from England that arrived 6 months later having been hauled by bullock cart from Rangoon in Burma (Myanmar) up to Kyaintong in Shan State and from there across the border to Daluo and on to Menghai (another version of the story says that Bai Meng Yu had visted India in his prepaparations for the factory and that the equipment was shipped from there). Ovens, cutting machines, rolling machines, a generator. All that was needed to set up a modern tea factory were installed in the factory that covered an area of 500 square metres.

The factory at that stage had 17 rooms including cutting, drying, rolling and sorting rooms. By the end of 1938 the factory was ready. It was called Yunnan Si Pu Enterprise Bureau Nan Nuo Shan Experimental Tea Factory. Having previously surveyed the market, Bai Meng Yu had already set his expectations high – the factory was to produce high quality black and green tea.

By March 1939 Nan Nuo Shan tea Factory had already produced it’s first black and green tea.

Another man, Fan He Jun was not far behind him. He was setting up another factory in Fuhai (present day Menghai) to be called Fuhai Tea Factory. This was to later become the now ubiquitous Menghai Tea Factory but Bai Meng Yu was a good 6 months ahead of them.

At the same time in Lincang, Feng Qing Tea Factory was being developed and there is some debate about which factory was the first to start production and claim the accolade of pioneering Yunnan Dian Hong.*

In the same year, the government introduced measures to control tea exports, which is said to have given the Nan Nuo Shan factory some trouble, but Bai Meng Yu approached Fan at Fuhai Tea Factory and the two co-operated for a time to produce Dian Hong.

One of the main activities of the factory at this stage was to distribute funds to farmers for an extensive planting programme. The approach was to use high quality, domestic stock for planting tea bushes following modern scientific methods. Bai oversaw the planting in Nan Nuo Shan of over 100 thousand mu (66,000 hectares) of tea bushes.

In 1941 the factory went into production, attracting a lot of interest from other in the industry. That year they made 2000 dan of tea (a dan is a pole and two baskets that is traditionally used throughout Asia to carry goods, but here refers to a unit of weight – 50kg. i.e. 100 tonnes in total).

In order to move further into the export market, the factory concentrated on black tea, and Bai Meng Yu recruited the help of a number of famous tea masters from Shanghai and Hangzhou. The factory made black tea of excellent quality following stringent guidelines: (allegedly) only when there was dew could the farmers pick tea, they had to keep the leaves in the shade, ba jiao (a variety of small banana whose leaves are used traditionally for wrapping food) leaves were used to line the baskets and farmers were prevented from overfilling or stuffing the baskets.

At this stage, they were relying on the old tea tree gardens on Nan Nuo Shan for their supply source and there was a high demand that they were apparently unable to meet. At this time, black tea was Yunnan’s single biggest export.

By the early ’40’s, business was badly disrupted by the war in South East Asia. The Japanese army was in Burma and the route to SE Asia had been bombed and was closed. Production at Nan Nuo Shan stopped.

In November 1942 the Japanese army were near Daluo (in Menghai County). Fuhai Tea Factory moved all it’s technical personnel to Chongqing, but Bai stayed in Xishuangbanna. The workers who had stayed at the Nan Nuo Shan Factory formed a civil defense force and fought alongside the Guo Min Dang (KMT) 93rd Army to push the Japanese out of Daluo.

In the foreground is the site of the second Nan Nuo Shan Tea Factory. All that is left are a few bricks.

After the end of the war in 1946 Nan Nuo Shan quickly went back into production and took over some Fuhai resources as they had not yet returned to the factory. For the next two years they made tea non-stop. Bai Meng Yu also set about building a second facility near Xiang Yang Zhai. Planting and research on different varieties of tea tree also continued. Bai’s eldest son, Bai Bing Cong, who had just graduated from Fudan University joined his father in Nan Nuo Shan.

By the end of 1948, the political landscape was shifting: The upper echelons of Yunnan Government were in a state of conflict. The former head of finance, Liu Chong Ren, had already left for Hong Kong and Si Pu Enterprise Bureau was without anyone in charge.

Bai had been in Nan Nuo Shan for 10 years and was reluctant to leave, but the situation was disintegrating rapidly. He decided to go to Burma and stay near the border, apparently hoping for an improvement in the situation that would allow him to return but, following the exhortations of people in Nan Qiao, Bai Meng Yu, along with a much larger exodus which later would include many retreating KMT soldiers, moved to Burma and then eventually northern Thailand where there had for centuries been a sizeable Hui population. He lived in Chiang Mai (and then Mei Sai) till his death in August 1965.

Little seems to be known about his later years, and the man who played a key role in the creation of Yunnan ‘Dian Hong’ Black tea, and also in creating an, albeit embryonic, modern tea industry in the province, has become little more than a footnote to Yunnan’s ancient, but ever evolving tea history.

Subsequently, the equipment from Nan Nuo Shan was taken over by Fuhai, and the tea gardens near ‘Er Chang’ (No 2 Factory) were put in the hands of Yunnan Tea Research Institute, though in practice the gardens are left to local people to pick.

Little is left. The people are all gone except for one elderly Hui man who worked at the factory as a youngster, married a local Aini woman and remained.

The Shi Tou Zhai factory is dilapidated, with apparently no interest in preserving it. The second factory – a more modest set of workshops – has been raised, and all that is left are a few bricks. What does remain there however, on this picturesque low hill in the shadow of Nan Nuo Shan, is a sizeable, now 70 year old tea garden. A legacy of Bai Meng Yu.

Nan Nuo Shan Tea Factory 'Er Chang' tea gardens

Looking back down the hill. The tea gardens that were planted by Bai Meng Yu and Nan Nuo Shan Tea Factory are on both sides.

*Dian is the old name for Yunnan. Hong means red. Chinese people refer to Black tea as Red tea

See here for a subsequent posts:

Nan Nuo Shan Tea Factory Revisited

Nan Nuo Shan Cha Chang (a sequel of sorts)

Manguo Xin Zhai

I went back out to Manguo Xin Zhai A couple of weeks ago – it was Children’s Day. Next year some of these students will graduate and go to Bulang Shan County or Menghai for middle school. As this is not an old village, there is no long history of children graduating from the village school and progressing to middle and high schools. The teachers aspirations are that children will be successful in moving on to other schools and that the value of education will be appreciated more and more. I had lunch with the teachers and the village head, who gave me a bag of tea as I left. I had taken a few things for the classroom – pens, paper, crayons, colouring pens, etc.

shuo bu qing chu – cant say for sure

Peng Zhe is head of the Xishuangbanna Tea Association. He was also, till last year, head of the Xishuangbanna Tea Bureau, a post he stepped down from. He is a mine of information on Puer tea and very wise. A man of few words.

Recently, talking over lunch, which of course centred around tea he said “The great thing about sheng cha is you can’t say anything for sure.”

Where’s it from? – Part 4

Despite a number of friends coming round several times to taste the tea and HM making a trip around Man Nuo and Pasha to see if we could identify where this tea actually comes from – everyone agrees it’s excellent – we still haven’t nailed it down. On the way, we did come across some very nice tea from Man Nuo though.

In the meantime, a customer who has tasted a sample of the tea, has offered to put up enough funds for us to be able to think about buying it!

We’re now waiting for more samples of the tea to arrive – maybe tonight, so we can see if it really is as the seller says….

Open House

We held a qing ke (open house) last weekend, but building work continues on a gazebo. It’s made from some timber and roof tiles from an old Dai house, supplemented with the remaining pine from the main building construction. It’s going to be a place to hang out and drink tea.

Built in the manner of a local Dai building rather than a Han style pagoda, there are some nominal similarities in design style between the two. Tiles like these are made by Dai people outside nearby Menghun. The village nearby is also renowned for hand-made paper.

The roof superstructure needs to be more substantial to support the tiles.

The toilet block replete with words of wisdom by friends from Suzhou. “It’s too white.” they said. “bu hao kan!”

toilet-bloc

A view from the road above the site. The white roof can just be seen through the trees.

view-from-the-road

Nan Nuo Shan

The place in Nan Nuo Shan is more or less finished; finished enough for us to start making tea up there. HM has been working with local Aini people to complete the building.

Here are a few pictures of tea being made.

Fresh leaves put to wilt. Not all Puer is wilted in this way, depending on the tea, some is roasted almost straight away.

Tea is ‘fried’ after wilting. We have built a set of double pans, each with its own fire but with a common flue.

The flue is slightly tilted to ensure a good draw. The front of the oven is also sloping out slightly so that the person frying tea can stand with their toes against the wall of the oven and gain enough leverage to lean over the wok for maximum reach. There is a distance of about 7-8 cm from the edge of the oven to the rim of the wok – enough to avoid getting burned.

After frying the tea is spread out to cool before rolling.

New Year

Xishuangbanna does not have a particularly strong Han Chinese culture, nonetheless, during this season, many different ethnic groups celebrate their own new year ; Aini, Jinuo, Han, all have celebrations.

This last week has been the Jinuo New Year – several days of celebrations, for which cows and pigs are slaughtered and shared out amongst the households of the village. Much is also given away to guests.

Yesterday I went with friends to Jinuo Shan. We were invited to a friends house to eat. This was followed by dancing.

A group of dancers, accompanied by others playing cymbals and makeshift drums, go round the entire village, enter each house to dance and drink bai jiu and finish in the village square to continue the celebrations.

A basket of greens was tossed in the air above everyone’s heads, while the drinking and dancing continued.

In these situations, avoiding being more or less forced to drink home-made maize liquor takes great determination and – as far as the hosts are concerned – a degree of insensitivity to their cultural norms. However, Jinuo people tend not to be as persistent as some other cultures in this matter.

All Jinuo people will wear some form of traditional dress for this kind of occasion; typically a jacket and a bag. Only the woman wear hats. The clothing is made using cotton that people have woven themselves, though the Jinuo likely never grew much cotton themselves, and although they apparently traditionally dyed cloth themselves using local plant dyes, it seems that this too is seldom practiced now.

There is very little tea in this particular part of Jinuo Shan now. Old tea trees have been cut down to plant rubber which encroaches relentlessly on more traditional farming areas.

Horse's Mouth

Tea Tales from the South