Tag Archives: Ancient tea trees
Puerh – Age and Other Words
Age of trees or bushes is one of the questions particularly vital to any discussion or selection of Puerh (regardless of how you spell it). A ten-year old tea doesn’t tell the drinker anything about the age of the leaves when picked, and for many of us this is a more intriguing and more delicious question than it sometimes gets credit for. Continue reading
Pu erh’s Needed Basics
Mystification in Puerh’s world comes from some of its legitimate claims, but it also comes from regurgitated misinformation, marketing, and the intensely pretentious. Mystification, though, can also serve to hide or manipulate knowledge and create hype, and it is at this, that this little bit of writing is directed. Continue reading
The Tea Boss Arrives…Without Warning
Wang Ling has arrived giving me only a couple of hours warning, and she is no conventional guest. She is a tea master with a personality that frequently ranges from the absurdly giggly to the mute tones of a … Continue reading
South Tea Sips 5: Concluding Sips…for now
Last days inevitably require ‘last sips’, though no sips will really be ‘last’ ones when it comes to tea. Having left Lao Banzhang, Marco and I head back to our base of food, operations, community, and what is left of … Continue reading
South Tea Sips 4: The Extra Leaf
Bent over, with the smell of freshly fried tea literally steaming into me I am struck that the wafts emanating upwards seem a combination of sweet corn and spinach. Not that it matters really, but I do spend an inordinate … Continue reading
South Tea Sips 2: Meals, Forearms, and an Enduring Tea Truth
Meals seem to at times provide the only respite from the luscious infusions of tea which hit from everywhere at once. We sit in Dafa’s dark wooden kitchen on the second floor of his home deep into Nan Nuo’s … Continue reading
South Tea Sips l : Marco, Matè, and Menghai
Marco Antonio Zamboni Zalamena and his matè bag have arrived but I cannot find either. Three different bus stations in southern Yunnan’s hot capital of Jinghong are empty of him. I’m ripped on far too much tea, slightly manic, … Continue reading
Jingmai Pu’erh – Menghai Part V – Last Sips
Few things bring people to concur like trees do. We need more of them everywhere and of every kind, and when the trees happen to be tea trees, there is the added bonus of the ‘sips’ and stimulant-wonder that they … Continue reading
Jingmai Pu’erh – The Mild Giant
When one is able to link a cup of tea – its leaves, strengths, and characteristics – to its origins, it creates a link that is irreplaceable. When one can link a tea to ‘its people’ that is one of … Continue reading
Up a Classic with a Classic – Xishuangbanna Continued
Teashops and tea cups have to at some point make way for the tea forests and fields. Fluid must give way to its ‘source’. As much as my entire being loves to be shoved into a tight little shop sipping … Continue reading