Tag Archives: yunnan

Time with Tseten – Tea Horse Road Trader

We sat in the dark gloom of his home, with a bit of lukewarm butter tea roaming around our hands. Another of the remaining legends of the days of trade and odyssey journey-making along the Tea Horse Road, Tseten was … Continue reading

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A Tea Comes Around

The joy of a bit of time-hit leaf beauty. Age hasn’t always been something I’ve ever been convinced matters in any tea. Age of bushes, of trees, or even of the producer maybe, but age of the cake or how … Continue reading

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The Tea Sessions Latest Instalment – Masters Wear Flip Flops

Few have had quite the leaf influence upon me, as has Mr. Gao (aka Dr. Gao, Master Gao, or just Master). From his understated approach to communicating to his intuitive understanding of the vital ‘fry’ his has been a calming … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – The Tea That Never Came

A simple tea room in Weishan, Yunnan, and one of the only tea rooms in my life that I failed to actually have tea in. Weishan was another of the understated hubs along the Tea Horse Road, and it marks … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Part Human and a Little Part Goat

Over the course of years since meeting Dorjè I’ve written and pondered much about him. “Part goat and a little part human” was how he was described to me. Perhaps sounds unfair but the goats’ abilities in the Himalayas are … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – The Great Bend of the Yangtze

It was here at the ‘first bend of the Yangtze’ in Yunnan province that the Mongolian armies of the Yuan Dynasty crossed the great waterway and would ‘take’ the previously independent region into the greater fold of the Middle Kingdom … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Other Tales and Sight

Not all stories of the Tea Horse Road were ones of grand expanses, snow caps, or buzzing tea sessions. A friend from the Yi minority invited me to visit his grandmother who had tales of her own to tell. She … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Fields vs Forests

Blankets and ridges of green stimulant leaf lie in rows near Puerh. Here the leaf is entirely industry. Gorgeous industry, but still industry. Local Hani, Han, Yi, Lahu, and Dai pluckers shimmy through the humid air to pluck, pluck, and … Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – Blessings and Warnings

“When you are lost in the mountains you must sit and think with your good brain….think!” Continue reading

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Tea Horse Road Chronicles – The Pluck

Napu went up the tea tree amid a forest of tea trees, shimmying along a support branch, until she could access the buds and leaves two metres off of the ground. I shimmied up along side her to watch her … Continue reading

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