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Post-conversation Conversation (On Wilting Shai Qing Mao Cha Part II)

I was recently talking with Wu Ya of Yunnan Scientific and Technical Publishing who, besides producing books on Puer tea, also publish the quarterly ‘Yunnan Puer Tea’ Magazine.

Wu Ya’s view echoed Tan’s: that it was not referred to in name in the past and that the wei diao period depended largely on how far a farmers trees were from the house. “What is important” he says “is that the fresh leaves are spread out and that they are not left overnight.” Adding that it was important for farmers to have a place (a small gazebo type shade structure) in their tea fields where leaves can be spread out in order that they stay cool whilst picking continues.

This view, not surprisingly perhaps, was reiterated in the Spring edition of Yunnan Puer Tea, which carried an article ‘Traditional and Modern Puer Tea Making Methods’.

The introduction differentiates traditional and modern methods as pre and post electrification. Essentially, tea making methods before and after 1956 (Three Big Transformations/san da gai zao). [This belies the earlier creation of a tea factory in 1938-39 in Nan Nuo Shan which introduced modern electric machines, but as they were essentially making black and green tea, we can perhaps ignore it in the context of the article. It is also of note that, because of the Nan Nuo Shan factory, set up by Bai Meng Yu, tea farmers in Nan Nuo Shan maintain they were ‘au fait’ with the concept of wilting much earlier than other areas, even though, at that stage, they were not making their own tea as they were obliged to sell their fresh leaves to the tea factory.]

Since wodui (wet pile) Puer tea production techniques were developed rather later in the 1970’s, the article does not consider shou cha in this comparison.

The article poses a central question: “What are the effects on the quality of traditional and modern Puer tea production methods?”

In translation it might read something like this:

“Comparison of the effects on quality of traditional and modern Puer tea production methods“

1. Wilting

Traditional method: Traditional production methods stipulate no particular requirement vis-a-vis wilting. If it happened, it was because the place where the tea was picked was far from where the tea was made, rather than being done deliberately. Thus, in traditional tea production, the craft of wilting was not stressed. Furthermore, there was no record or research of the function of wilting.

Modern method: Modern tea production methods, also have no specific requirements regards the wilting process, but some tea businesses, taking the practice from Wulong tea production, made ‘weidiao’ a set procedure in the production of Puer tea. The result is that Puer tea’s ‘kuse’ is reduced a little and the fragrance augmented. Another reason is that the fermentation process is accelerated and the rate of change in the tea is increased. Enzymes are a form of protein stored in living plants, they are one of the most powerful sources of transformation in organic matter.

People in the past referred to them as ‘yeast’ and believed that their function was to cause fermentation, today, modern science has confirmed that the function of enzymes is not fermentation, rather to act as a catalyst in living matter. In Puer tea, enzymes promote the release of fragrances and bring about other changes; enzymes in tea leaves have a direct relationship to the moisture content, temperature, humidity, etc.

After fresh leaves are picked, the process of dehydration is catalysed by enzymes. In the wilting process, between 10 and 16 hours, the activity of enzymes continuously increases up until 16 hours after which it starts to decline. *

The cataysing function of enzymes directly affects the formation of Wulong and Black tea. In Puer tea production, wilting can facilitate change and is beneficial to the teas quality.

Conclusion: Even though wilting is not considered a necessary process in both traditional and modern production, it is beneficial to the changes that take place and the quality of Puer tea, and is absolutely neccessary.”

*The article here is not suggesting that wilting in the Puer making process should be done for such a long time – it is merely describing the activity of enzymes in relation to time.

Yunnan Puer Tea Magazine, Spring 2011.

It would be easy to dismiss this as commercial patter serving the interests of big tea business so I thought it might be interesting to do a little ‘sondage’ of some publications to see if this point of view was generally supported.

A quick browse round publications in a local bookstore highlighted the broad acceptance of wilting shai qing mao cha for Puer tea. Pick up any Puer tea magazine and there’s always at least a couple of pictures of tea put to ‘wilt’. Of course, we could dismiss this as serving commercial interests, so here are a few more references;

Looking through some rather more official publications:

People’s Republic of China, International Standards GB/T22111-2008, Product of geographical indication (sic)- Puer tea.

“6.5.1 shai qing cha”

“xian ye tan fang – sha qing – rou nian – jie jue – ri guang gan cao – bao zhuang

Spread out fresh leaves – kill green – roll – finish – sun dry – wrap“

Here they use the phrase tan fang – to spread out. There is no further detail

So here:

Yunnan Tea Basic Production Skills (Yunnan cha ye chuzhi jishu)

This book describes 6 steps to produce ‘dian qing‘ a term sometimes preferred for shai qing mao cha – the raw material from which all Puer tea is made.

“Basic process of making sun dried tea (Shai qing cha ye chu jia gong)”

“2 – tan qing

After fresh leaves have been collected, they should be spread out to a suitable depth. 10-15 centimetres, allow the fresh grassy smell to disipate and the fragrance to augment. No moisture should be visible on the surface of the leaves. When the leaves have lost about 10% of their weight they are ready to fry.”

Here they use the phrase tan qing but the meaning is the same as tan fang and the objective – to reduce the moisture content in the leaves – is the same.

One could also dismiss these government publications on the basis that they also have interests to look out for, so I picked up a book I haven’t looked at in a while:

Liu Qin Jin is a fan of cooked Puer tea and no great fan of young Puer – he states in his book ‘Appreciation and Brewing of Puer Tea’ that Sheng cha should not even be called Puer tea until it has acquired the properties that are associated with aged Puer tea – i.e appropriate cake and broth colour and flavours/aromatic qualities that are typically associated with a well aged tea. He puts that at a solid 15 years.

He describes what he outlines as the ‘Steps in making Traditional Puer Tea’, where there is no mention of withering, but on the next page, where there is more detail of the steps involved, the first is ‘Spread out the fresh leaves’ (xian ye tan fang).

He recommends spreading the tea to a depth of 15-20 centimetres until the moisture content has been reduced to around 70%. This suggests a slightly longer wilting time than others propose.

So, by way of drawing some kind of provisional conclusion, we might note that wilting has become an accepted practice, albeit without very clear stipulations, particularly regard to time. There appear to be no indications that wilting Puer tea for Sheng Puer is in any way detremental to the tea, or to the ageing process of that tea. It is most certainly widely practiced to varying degrees and has been done so for several decades.

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)

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

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.

Books

Yesterday we went back to Man Guo Xin Zhai in Bulang Shan. It was a hot, dry day – 34 degrees and windy. It’s been a very dry spring with only one decent rain in months.

As we left Jinghong with our boxes of books to take to the village school, windows down and the wind blowing, a smell of wood smoke suddenly reminded me of France – the south. Our olfactory senses must surely be the most refined, our sense of smell the most evocative.

Outside Jinghong on the Menghai road it’s all bananas and rubber. After Nan Nuo Shan this scene gives way to the big tea factories and their plantations along the road side . Past Menghai. Not the ugliest of towns, but nothing much to commend it and we move into bright green fields of new rice and, in higher areas, the pale leaves of sugar cane. Farmers are out cutting the cane, a variety that is not suitable for eating but provides a cash crop that’s sold for sugar manufacture. Smoke is in the air.

We pass new Dai houses on the outskirts of Meng Hun – a sign of their growing prosperity, thanks mostly to rubber.

As we move up off the plain there are tree blossoms Bai Hua and maybe some Cherry. There are more, smaller tea plantations, but the profit from such crops is minimal; I was recently visiting some friends in Da Du Gang – an area mostly given to green tea production, Biluo Chun, where villagers started planting tea 5 or 6 years ago. But they sell the fresh leaves for 2 or 3 RMB a kg, so it’s not a ‘get rich quick’ shceme. Old tea tree farmers do rather better.

There are some new place-name signs on the side of the road in English and Chinese, translated by someone with a sense of humour. The Chinese is commonly a transliteration from a local language, so bears little or no resemblance to the original meaning: Man Da Huo, if one can wring a meaning out of it in Chinese becomes ‘Village Makes Fire’ (‘man’ is a transliteration from Dai- meaning village) which in turn becomes in English ‘Man Ignition’.

The school where we are headed is supervised by a bigger school in the village on the main road; Ah Ke Zhai which somehow gets rendered into English as ‘Acton’. It bears absolutely no resemblance to Acton (or East Acton for that matter), but it’s fun to consider the possibilites of a twinning between the two.

Going up the hill to the village, one is reminded of why people settled here. There’s water! Women are washing clothes and bathing in spring water coming out of a pipe on the roadside. None-the-less this area is recognised by the central government as an area of poverty and within that, Man Guo Xin Zhai is particularly badly affected.

When we had handed over the books and materials the teacher, Xiao Luo, he put the books on a couple of tables outside and called the children round, inviting them to have a look. The effect was noteable; as children read out loud a low hum developed. The children, despite the fact that their Chinese is less advanced than their city counterprts, were engrossed in reading. Perhaps for the first time in their village having books to read and become immersed in.

reading1

Early Spring Tea

We went out to Bulang Shan the day before yesterday and then HM went again yesterday to Lao Ban Zhang. He came back with lots of photos (thanks to a new camera) and a little new tea.

P1000376

It’s not old tree tea. It’s tea from trees that are maybe 50-60 years old. It seems no chemicals have been used on the trees…

The first one we just tried:

As HM said “The fragrance, flavour and aftertaste are all lacking.” “Only the smokey flavour is (more than) enough.”

But then, as someone said to us last spring “If it wasn’t smokey it wouldn’t be Lao Ban Zhang!”

P1000375

The tree (and woman) in Lao Ban Zhang that almost everyone who goes there takes a photo of.

Lao Ban Zhang consists of five villages:

Lao Ban Zhang, Xin Ban Zhang, Baka Nuan, Baka Long and Lao Man E. All of these villages produce ‘Lao Ban Zhang’ tea, but they are all different.

Old and New Ban Zhang are Aini villages (people who originally moved there from Nan Nuo Shan).

Baka Nuan and Baka Long are Lahu villages and Lao Man E is a Bulang village.

Cha Gao

Over the last couple of years we’ve tried our fair share of cha gao or ‘Tea Paste’. Someone we know brought some to the shop the other day. We’ve tasted his offerings before. His skill is good but the ‘yuanliao‘, the raw materials – the tea he uses, are poor quality. HM told him that the tea he used to make the tea paste was overfried. Our acquaintance suggested we co-operate – our tea, his cha gao making skills. Whatever cha gao is, it’s not tea. Kind of hard to imagine using so much good tea to make so little cha gao…..

More "Where's it from?"

Provenance

The issue of provenance in Puer tea circles is a tricky one. That we be concerned with where our food and drink comes from is not irrational. Perhaps as a result of increasing industrialization, supermarkets, globalization, etc. in the latter half of the 20th C many western consumers became dissociated from the sources of their food. Provenance has been an aspect of the wider ‘real food’ (organic/fair-trade/slow food, etc.) movement. Knowing where something comes from, how it was made, who it was made by is important to us.

It appears there is some kind of correlation between price, provenance and expectations. We are often willing to forfeit knowledge if the price is right. No one is going to ask where a 2€ bottle of ‘Vin de Table’ in Miniprix came from, but if one’s buying a nice ‘Cru Artisan’ Medoc from a vintners one may well want to know the who, when, what, where, etc.

Also, nobody in their right mind is going to ask where say, Dayi 7552 or Menghai 7572 comes from. They probably couldn’t tell you anyway without looking it up in a book as these are blended teas from a variety of sources. But with small producers this question becomes relevant and, to varying extents, important. A small producer (particularly if they are lacking a reputation) who neglects or declines to state the origins of their tea is typically seen as suspect, which may be valid if a little irrational.

The error here is twofold;

1. Assuming larger producers are the best upholders of standards.

2. Assuming that small producers are not easily capable of producing better tea than the large name-brands.

One problem with Yunnan’s Puer tea is that the government and tea industry are a long way from achieving the kind of controls that the French government has in place for wine -there is currently some semblance of nomenclature according to regions/mountains but it’s not regulated and it’s far from water-tight. *

There are some generalizations that can be made about teas from different mountains, different seasons, etc. but within that there are seemingly infinite variations. So, one may have an understanding of what Yiwu tea normally tastes like, but it’s broad, and there are always going to be teas that defy the norm. The reality is there are fairly few people, even after years of experience, who on inspecting and tasting a Raw Puer can tell with any degree of accuracy where it came from. There are people who have a profound knowledge of the teas from one, two, three areas, but rarely all of them.

Let’s take an example: Borne out of curiosity or the belief that you can circumvent the ‘middlemen’ many a Puer merchant or enthusiast’s dream is to go into the mountains to find their own maocha and press it into cakes or whatever. This, on the face of it seems feasible. Since it’s easily accessible, many people will head for Nan Nuo Shan where there is a long tradition (a thousand years or more) of Aini tea cultivation but, possibly because of their location, they are also rather adept business people.

Some villages in Nan Nuo Shan will take in tea from other villages on the mountain which they then sell on to outsiders. So in this case one might go to a village and assume that the tea was from that village, but quite likely it would be a blend from a variety of sources. All of this is without considering different types of tea trees: Ancient trees, Old trees, Tea bushes, that might be in the mix.

Nan Nuo Shan’s tea farmers will also trade with farmers from other areas so it is quite possible that if one went on-spec and was not paying attention, one could unwittingly buy some tea that was from somewhere else all together. It wouldn’t make it bad tea. It might be very good tea, but it wouldn’t be Nan Nuo Shan tea. One of course would put one’s hand on one’s heart and say it was just that, after all, that’s where you bought it.

So does this matter? Well, it does and it doesn’t: One hopes that everyone is honest about where their tea comes from, but part of the loss of confidence in Puer a few years ago was precisely because it was found that people were passing tea off as coming from places other than where it actually came from, mostly with the aim of getting a higher price. But that aside, if one buys tea under the impression that it comes from Ban Po Lao Zhai but it actually comes from Ban ma, one hasn’t been badly duped, but if one then drank some Ban Po Lao Zhai tea one might, assuming one can tell the difference between the two, be unsure who to believe, this guy, or the last guy. Lao Ban Zhang is similar: Lao Ban Zhang and He Kai Shan are both considered to produce Lao Ban Zhang tea, but they are quite different. So within the broader nomenclature of Nan Nuo Shan or Lao Ban Zhang there are many variations. Both of these by the way, despite their obvious differences, could also be called ‘Menghai’ teas as both mountains are in Menghai County. There are a couple of reasons why someone may refer to their tea as Menghai tea:

1. They believe it be very good tea and want to try to limit others from figuring out exactly where it came from

2. They can’t tell you anything more precise about it – mostly likely because it’s a blend.

Looking at the tea and drinking it will confirm which is the case.

So the far more important question to which “Where’s it from?” is secondary is “Is it good tea?”. Or perhaps “Is it a good example of ‘Whatever Mountain’s tea?” The first question is easily within any interested tea drinkers reach. The second accessible to a much smaller number of people who will likely focus their attention on one or two tea mountains and explore them thoroughly in order to get a deep understanding of their teas.

*In recent years apparently, some small French wine producers have bucked the system in preference for their own standards which they believe to be higher than those stipulated by the government. Lack of classification doesn’t always mean a poor product – indeed, these wines can bring a higher price than those with a seemingly more prestigious classification.

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Tea Tales from the South