Category Archives: Places

Spring in Banna

Spring has come early this year. A few weeks ago there was some bush tea around and I was in Lao Si Tu where they were processing some old tree tea.

At this time of year in the mountains, hillsides are spotted with white and the air is heavy with the fragrance of Bauhinias. In Chinese the tree is known as zi jing hua -紫荆花 , but in Xishuangbanna they bear mostly white flowers so are known locally as bai hua shu – 百花树.

The road up to Yi Bang was much better than it was a couple of weeks ago: the mud has all but dried up leaving a rock hard surface with deep ruts in places. But it has not dried out to the point that it is terribly dusty. Also, it is early enough in the season that there has not yet been much traffic.

I was in an Yi village some way beyond Yi Bang – He Bian Zhai. A small village with some fifteen households at the head of the Long Gu River.

Ancient tea trees near He Bian Zhai

Most of the ancient tea tree gardens are below the village, but some are next to the houses. A few are quite large, with a girth of maybe 80 cm, but most are more slender. The trees here are xiao ye zhong – small leaf variety, as are many places in the Six Famous Tea Mountains area. The ground here is not treated in any way. The soil is hard packed and very dry as the farmers do not turn it.

xiang ming he valley in the early morning

Looking down the Xiang Ming River valley

Ya Nuo (You Le Shan)

There’s plenty of tea to be found on the road out from Jinghong to Jinuo Shan, but it’s not until you get some way past Jinuo Shan Town that you start to see anything that looks like you might want to try drinking it. And not until you get to Ya Nuo, some 10 km later, that you start to see some forest and ancient tea tree gardens.

Formerly known as Long Pa, Ya Nuo is a Jinuo village on the Menghun side of Jinuo Shan. It is one of two original ‘buluo‘ that the Jinuo inhabited. Originally, there were two extended families with fifty odd households living under one roof in a large bamboo structure with a grass roof. All the buildings in the village now are brick and concrete.

In the late 1970’s, when the Jinuo people were officially recognised by the National Government, the families in Ya Nuo were joined by families from the second village.

The Jinuo are a Tibeto-Burman group with a population of about 21,000. Their language shares some similarities with Burmese and belongs to the Yi branch of the Tibeto-Burman family. Jinuo people are animist and traditionally, hunter-gatherers and tea farmers. The Jinuo ‘creation myth’ is that they were born out of the sun drum – a large drum with pegs holding a taught skin over the end of the drum that radiate out resembling the sun’s rays. All Jinuo villages have a male and female drum which are of central importance in festivities as they embody sacred spirits.

Traditional Jinuo culture was egalitarian, with clan members hunting and farming together and sharing their spoils equally amongst all families. Tea was traded with ‘ma bang’ caravan traders in exchange for commodities that were needed, such as salt, cotton and ironware.

The most important festival is Temaoke or ‘Iron Forging Festival’ which falls early in the new year and is referred to as the ‘Jinuo New Year’. For Tamaoke, a cow is slaughtered and shared amongst the villagers such that each household gets an equal share of all parts of the animal.

Jinuo people tradionally make tea by wrapping it in a large leaf and roasting it in the embers of a fire. The leaves are then removed and brewed in a length of bamboo,or nowadays, in a large kettle. The resulting tea is strong and sweet.

Older Jinuo people – particularly women, chew betel nut ‘Burmese style’ using areca nuts and betel leaves and continue to wear traditional dress, but most younger people now only do so for special occasions.

At Ya Nuo, there are 2,800 mu of old tea tree gardens, owned by the original families of the village. In the 70’s, a co-operative, that is now defunct, was set up and tea bushes planted around the village. The later arrivals have no old tea tree gardens.

From the back of the village an area of protected forest extends all the way to Menglun, and it is mostly in this area that the ancient tea gardens are to be found, at altitudes ranging from 1300 to 1700 meters.

You Le Shan – dawn

A chilly early morning looking south east towards Mengla from Jinuo Shan.

I was back in Youle Shan last week. The weather here has turned quite cool. The days are still into the 20’s, but the nights can be quite chilly. At this time of year there are some spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

The area to the right of the picture is all part of Menglun Protected Forest Reserve. The villages tea gardens border on the reserve.

Menghai-Mengsong

The old Menghai road looks like they once thought about repairing it, but then gave up on the idea. There’s not much traffic, but there is some mining up there, so there’s quite a few trucks on the road. Fortunately they’re not big, but they’re probably mostly overladen, which has taken its toll on the road. Mengsong is some kilometers off to the north of this road. Further into Menghai there are many tea factories along the road – witness to the fact that until the end of the last century, this was still the only route from Jinghong to Menghai.

Liu Sha He had much more water in it than the last time I was here back in the early summer. Being in the mountains at this time of year is pleasing: the air is redolent with tree blossom – jiang hua line the sides of the roads, providing a dense fragrance that counters the slightly sour pungence of latex tapped from rubber trees that is pervasive at lower altitudes. There is also the smell of damp forest mixed with the alcoholic aroma of fruits that have fallen and lie on the ground untouched.

Besides tea, Autumn is a time to harvest rice and maize. Rice is usually not sold and the maize is typically dried and used for pig fodder.

Bamboo is cut in the autumn after the zhu chong – bamboo grub – has hatched. If bamboo is harvested at other times of year, the grubs, which have not hatched out, will eat the bamboo, then eat their way out of it.

Long zhu, or Dragon Bamboo, is known for its thick base which is substantial enough for kitchen implements to be fashioned out of it: mugs,jugs,etc.

Naka

Naka -(Menghai Mengsong)

Naka is a Lahu village above Menghai Mengsong with around 100 households. They have a compratively small area of old tea gardens – about 500 mu of old tea trees. As early as the 1970’s tea manufacturers were sourcing tea from here. Read more about Naka here.

Autumn Tea – Flowers, Nuts & Yue Guang Bai

Autumn is the time for tea flowers and nuts.

This is an ancient tea tree near Shi Tou zhai near the old Nan Nuo Shan Cha Chang.

On the way, I dropped in on a tea farmer we work with who had made some yue guang bai. Made, in this case, from old tea trees Yue Guang Bai is shade dried and does not undergo any other processing.

An inescapable sweet fragrance fills the work area where the tea has been drying. The tea is a little more astringent than spring harvest, but the fragrance is fine and the broth sweet. There is a little hint of fermentation, probably related to the slight oxidation that inevitably occurs during drying. This could be more or less, depending on the weather.

The spent leaves look a little like black tea as there is inevitably some oxidation in the drying process.

Ban Zhang & Hekai Old Tea Trees

ma hou pao – 马后炮

A friend told me today of some news from Lao Ban Zhang and He Kai: “Ban Zhang and Hekai have decided not to pick summer tea.” It seems a little disingenuous since we’re already into the autumn tea season, but it’s a step in the right direction, as long as they haven’t changed their minds by next year. Or is it?

The issue of over-picking tea, particularly on old tea trees is important, and not that straightforward. There are some seemingly common misunderstandings about exactly what ‘over-picking’ implies.

Not picking summer tea, the least sought after/cheapest harvest of the year, is not going to suddenly make everything right if other issues aren’t addressed. Ban Zhang autumn gu shu is on the market at 1,500 yuan/kilo, so the cynic might say they can afford not to pick summer tea, but whilst it would have given trees a chance to recover a little had it happened, it won’t necessarily improve next spring’s harvest.

Over the next few posts, I hope to explore this issue further and try to get to a deeper understanding of what the issues are, and how they would best be resolved.

* ma hou pao, is an expression that translates as something like ‘Firing the artillery after the horses have charged.’ Rather like ‘shutting the door after the horse has bolted’.

Nan Nuo Shan Dian Hong

I was in Nan Nuo Shan yesterday where a friend of mine gave me some da shu black tea to try.

Nan Nuo Shan has a history of tea making. When Nan Nuo Shan Tea Factory was set up in the late 1930’s, it produced black and green tea, and in its heyday was producing hundreds of tonnes of tea a year, mostly for export. Although they planted large areas of tea trees, initially they made black tea from the old tea trees on the mountain which was, by all accounts, very good.

Fu Hai tea factory was set up later, also in Nan Nuo Shan. My friend worked there as a young man and learned the skills of tea making. He later was employed to teach new apprentices and was one of the first farmers in recent history in Nan Nuo Shan to start making his own tea: prior to that, the custom was for farmers to pick tea and then take the fresh leaves to the factory. Because of this, many farmers at that time had limited experience of making their own tea.

But making black tea is becoming quite popular in Nan Nuo Shan. My friend had made a couple of different batches. One we drank at his home, the other I tasted in Jinghong.

It’s not the most beautiful Dian Hong – as Dan San says, there would be more tips in bush tea, but the leaves are impressive. Most people making tea in Nan Nuo Shan ferment it quite lightly. This is a little more heavily fermented. The dry leaves are still quite fragrant, but the flavour is deeper, stronger, more full bodied than typical Nan Nuo black tea.

It’s got what I think of as that kind of peppery sweetness which seems to typify Yunnan Dian Hong. Some hints of caramel and spices whose names don’t come to mind. The flavour is quite robust and has both some bitterness and a little astringence. The broth has that classic bright, golden – orange colour, but deepens somewhat on later steepings.

I was expecting this tea to be slightly more fragrant than the one we tasted in Nan Nuo Shan, but it was not obviously so. Muted, elusive, perhaps some hint of flowers, so it’s sweetness is the thing that stays with you – lasting for quite some time.

The leaves after a few steepings. As one can see, this is still not very heavily oxidised. The leaves are still very much intact and a testimony to the trees they came from.

After steeping for several minutes, the broth darkened somewhat. It has nice clarity and lustre.

By the way, the small beaker above is Thai celadon, made in Chiang Mai using an ash glaze. They specialise in tableware and produce this quite ‘costaud’ style which feels very comfortable in the hand and is pleasant to drink from.

There and Here – more on puer storage

After comparing two Bulang Peak teas whilst I was in the UK, I thought it might be interesting to bring some of the 2010, UK stored tea back to ‘Banna to compare with some of the same tea that has been stored here in Jinghong.

This therefore, is more an ‘apples with apples’ comparison than the one in the UK which was comparing a 2010 tea stored in the UK for 18 months with a 2011 tea that had been in Jinghong. This time we have the same tea, same batch.

UK cake on left, 'Banna on the right

The first thing is that the difference between the teas is not that obvious. Looking at the colour of the cakes, the broth colour and the dregs, there is some difference to be detected, but it’s not that pronounced.

There is a slight difference in colour between the two cakes – most visible in the tips which are a little darker in the ‘Banna stored tea and in the slightly ‘greener’ hue to the UK stored cake. The top photo (right) is the UK stored cake, the lower one the ‘Banna stored tea. It’s not obvious in the photos here but the ‘Banna tea also looks a little richer, more moist than the UK stored cake, but perhaps I’m just imagining that.

The broth also produces marked difference – at least of the kind that I might have anticipated.

The broth from the first steepings of both teas looks pretty similar in tone.

I started using these two cups – the UK stored tea is on the left – but then realised my mistake as the shape of the cups and their translucency was affecting the appearance of the broth.

So I switched to two identical cups to see how the appearance of the broth was altered. I tried to steep the teas as close to simultaneously as I could in order to minimise any differences caused by oxidation of the broth and steeped the UK stored tea first, so that oxidation would not exaggerate any difference.

As can be seen in the photo above, there is no very obvious difference. Possibly the broth on the left (UK) is a mite lighter than the ‘Banna broth. Both are the third steeping.

Here is the broth from both teas after steeping for 5 minutes. This time the broth on the right (‘Banna) is more noticeably darker, but it’s still not much.

The difference is most clear in the flavour – perhaps as one might have expected. The UK stored cake has kept more of its youthful floral/fruity notes and is very sweet. At the same time it is very slightly more astringent than the ‘Banna stored tea.

The ‘Banna stored tea has lost most of those fruit/floral notes and has started to show hints of something deeper, though as yet, no obvious chen wei. Both teas, when pushed, show a decent kuwei and both resolve quickly to produce a good huigan.

So is there a conclusion?

Of sorts, there is an interim one. It could be that the astringence in the UK stored cake is due to the fact that it has aged more slowly than the ‘Banna tea (and we have forgotten how it was when young) and that with further storage it will diminish. The other possibility, it seems, is that it has been influenced by the dryness of the UK conditions and this has produced the astringence. Only further storage time will tell.

Here and There – on Storage

I was recently in England for a few weeks and had gone with a little of last year’s spring tea tucked under my arm.

The previous time I had been in the UK was nearly 2 years earlier, and on that occasion I had also taken some tea which was spring tea from that year – 2010.

I had left a couple of cakes with a friend who had stored them in no particular way in his bedroom. I feared the tea would be nigh on ruined, so was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was actually quite decent.

I decided it would be interesting to compare a couple of cakes – a Bulang Peak from 2010 that had been in England since September 2010 (i.e. a 2 year old tea that has been in England for 20 months +) and a 2011 Bulang Peak that had been in Jinghong for a year. True, it wasn’t comparing like with like, but I thought it might prove interesting nonetheless.

I borrowed a camera to take a few photos -They don’t bear too much scrutiny, but give a reasonable impression as it was the comparison that I was interested in.

The first thing that was obvious was that the 2010 cake had aged quite well. It is clear from the photo that the leaves are darker.

The UK stored cake is slightly drier, which is not so easy to detect in the picture, but it has not dried out as much as I thought it might and the tea has a little chen wei. It has lost some astringence, has a nice fragrance and huigan. The wet leaves have some fruity-tobacco scents and the broth was an amber-orange.

I pushed the 4th steeping which produced a pleasant kuwei, but this was soon followed by a sweetness in the throat and mouth, and some fragrance floating up into the nose accompanied by a lingering bitterness on the upper palate.

The 2011 cake was somewhat similar as one might expect, but with more kuse, a lighter, more amber orange broth colour as well as a less distinct chenwei than the older cake.

So what seems interesting in this is that England, at least in the last couple of years, in my friends house, was not a bad environment for storing Puer. Of course, a longer storage time might bring out problems that are not so obvious now – the tea may dry out too much – but for now the result is not bad.

I’m quite sure that the tea kept in Jinghong has aged more quickly than the tea in England, that would be normal, but the UK stored tea compared well and highlights that the ‘Holy Grail’ of an ideal Puer aging environment might be worth striving for, of course, but may not be absolutely necessary. If one accepts that your tea is going to age more slowly, as the Bard of Oxford maintains, a cooler climate may work fine.

Horse's Mouth

Tea Tales from the South