China Tea Travels To Yunnan For Tea (Naturally)

We left the Chengdu airport at around 9pm and arrived in Kunming after 10pm. By the time we got to our hotel (courtesy of the many touts at the airport) it was well past 11pm. We were hungry so we walked down to the only restaurant open and had some quick noodles.

The next day we took the early bus to Chuxiong, about two hours by express bus from Kunming. Unfortunately, we did not take the express bus and our journey last three and half hours through some very rough mountains and bad roads. Wrong bus station. Wrong bus.

After completing our business in Chuxiong we had the next day's morning to explore this small Yi minority town (see inchinahil.travellerspoint.com for more information on Chuxiong). The first thing we looked for was a tea shop and we found one in the middle of the town.

Chuxiong Tea Shop

As we entered this couples well-stocked tea shop, they were having their lunch and did not seem too happy to see us. As we visited and had them finish their lunch, they became friendlier. By the end of our visit, they treated us as if we were part of their family, visiting with us about the local tea and giving us advice on how to determine the quality of the tea we were drinking.

Tea ceremony, Chuxiong style.

The tea on the left is a standard blended green from Yunnan. The one on the right is a local tea from White Bamboo Mountain. The first thing I noticed was the cloudiness the local tea had.

This is a close up of the Yunnan blended green tea. We have tried several of the Yunnan greens and all were solid green teas and very drinkable. This one was no exception.


Package for the locally produnced White Bamboo Mountain green tea. This tea was supposed to be grown by Yi people, picked and processed by them. It looked a lot like Bi Lo Chuan.

Here is a close up of the White Bamboo Mountain green tea. It was very unusual and obviously unique so we bought some to give it a try. I will do a tea tasting of it in the near future.

While we were at this shop, we asked about a puerh that we had purchased in Chengdu. Remember the white or tippy puerh we had purchased earlier? Well, this guy had one and so we asked if we could try it. Both, Sunee and I were disappointed and decided against buying his tippy white puerh cake.

Yulin Puerh Tea Shop in Kunming

We went looking for an art house for Sunee to check out some art books and look at some paintings. There is never a tea shop we can pass by nowdays without going in. Here we found the Yintai Shop next to Green Lake in downtown Kunming. It is a tough life chasing tea in China.

Inside we found wonderfully stocked shelfs of puerh. This was a puerh shop after all and we were in Yunnan Province.

We ended up buying one of those golden cans filled with mini tuochas. It turned out to be a rare find when we tried it later on at Emei.

Two different kinds of puerh. The one on the left was the min tuocha we eventually bought. It was great!

A full service shop no less.

And here is our tea master who let us taste tea to our hearts delight. Of course, we rewarded him with many great purchases as well.

Looking For Yunnan's Best Gold

After spending some yuan at the puerh shop we decided to seek out my favorite tea - Yunnan Gold. We stopped at several along the lake only to be told they stocked only puerh. We then walked through the beautiful Green Lake Park and decided it was time to return to our hotel. That was when we found our Yunnan Gold.

The owner had the gold and was happy to let us try some. Seems she did not cut her gold with the normal dian cong but sold it straight. We had to believe her as the tea we saw was solid gold and the taste was even better.

Here the owner's daughter (I assume) fixed us up some of her Gold. Was it fine! Of course we stocked up on it.

Sunee negotiates with the owner so we can have lots more of the Gold when we get back home. She was successful and I was happy.

We also got to try some standard Yunnan green. Got lots of green in Emei so we passed on this tea. Took a bunch of Gold off her hands, though.

The Kunming Tea Wholesale District

A Tea House in the Nongyuan Artist Village of Chengdu

This past Saturday (March 28), we met Bogdan and his wife, Weiyan, in Chengdu and traveled to the Nongyuan Artist Village of Chengdu (see my emeimtn.blogspot.com) where we had lunch and visited for about three hours. As we walked through the beautiful setting, we came across a restaurant and tea house that were in the process of being finished. The tea house was open so we went in to check it out. The following pictures and information are about this very unique tea house set up for the resident artists.


A great "stash" of puerh on an antique Chinese medicine cabinet.

In addition to the main tea table in the front, the tea house had four antique looking tables with four chairs around the spacious and sunny room. Each table had its own tea server of different design and size. Here we see a tradition tea server carved from a single piece of wood with all the normal accessories.

This table had a very attractive tea server with coaster and hot water pot ready for guest to sit, relax and enjoy their tea.

A traditional Chinese tea server located near the windows with a beautiful view of the surrounding bamboo forests and flowers in the area.

Another table and another server. Again, this table afforded a view of the garden setting of the tea house.

A huge carved water buffalo gave an impressive feel to the main tea table located in the front of the tea house.

A second "stash" of puerh stood across the room from the first. Again, it was actually an antique Chinese medicine cabinet. What a great idea for storing one's precious teas!

One of the local resident artist welcomes me to their tea house with a great cup of puerh tea. The tea was really good with hints of floral and mushrooms.

A nice deep orange colored liquor made me feel welcome and warm toward the three artists who were enjoying a tea together.

These interesting tea canisters were filled with different puerh's from their collection, all ready to be brewed and enjoyed.


The tea house was beautiful and gave a feeling of warmth and friendliness that Sunee and I would like to replicate one of these days in our dream traditional Chinese compound we plan to build in Thailand.

Chengdu Tea Ceremony

This is a short Tea Tasting we had at the Chengdu Tea Culture Street. The two teas were Huang Ya from Meng Ding Mountain and Dragon Well Longjing. Both were great so we bought a little of both.

An Emei Mountain Chinese Tea Ceremony

This is a typical tea ceremony performed in tea shops and tea houses everywhere in Sichuan Province. This particular ceremony took place at a new Zhuyeqing Tea shop across the street from Southwest Jiaotong University in Baguan Village.

A Tea Presentation

This is the presentation I gave as an example of a "How To" presentation. The students are actually teachers from different departments who want to improve their English. They will have to prepare a simple "how to" presentation along these lines.

Special China Tea Travels Hand-picked and Hand-processed Green Tea

As stated in the previous post, all the "hard work" put in by the Freshmen Class 1 came to naught because we had not picked enough tea to process. I ended up with the tea we had picked. I took it home in hopes of convincing Sunee to become a tea processor. She liked the idea and we became our own specialists in tea processing. The above poster represents our new found field of tea processing. Actually it came from a website that specializes not in tea but in what is called "motivational posters." How is this for a motivational poster? The picture is mine as are the motivational words.


I did some internet research and decided on a process known as the Longjing method. Basically there are three ways to process green tea: fry it, bake it or steam it.

Since we have no oven to bake the tea in and we had no idea what steaming meant for tea, Sunee decided to fry it. The Longjing method calls for three separate fries of twenty minutes each. First, however, one had to let it dry in the shade for a couple of days. We followed these directions and you can see Sunee processing the tea in the first fry after the initial drying period.

Here is the tea after the second frying. Sunee would fry the tea at medium heat and move it around the pan with her hands to insure all the tea was heated.

After each frying, we would let the tea cool and "rest" the remainder of the day. The process took around five days with the first two days allowing the tea to dry on its own. Additionally, we allowed one day for each of the frying sessions for a total of five days.

So how was this hand-picked, hand-processed China Tea Travels tea? To be honest, Sunee sneaked some to try after the second frying and she thought it was pretty good, so our expectations were high when I did the official tasting.

We used our Gaiwan teapot to make this first "official" unveiling of our own special green tea. As you can see, the tea came out a pale luscious and beautiful amber. The aroma was wonderfully hypnotizing with lots of hints of "hand-processing" and essence of being "hand-picked." Could it be that the freshmen all forgot to wash their hands as they picked our tea?Complex is simply a word that does not do justice to this "fantastic" tea.

As we both lingered over this exhilarating aroma, a hesitation gripped our solace. What if this stuff tastes bad? What if . . . .. . ? What if . . . . .? What the heck! We have just spent five days preparing for this moment and here we are hesitating.

As I sipped the hot liquid, the first thing that came to mind was . . . well, Zhuyeqing. Sunee's first comment was also - Zhuyeqing! Hey, that means that we were a success, doesn't it? A tea that tastes like Zhuyeqing is a good thing not a bad thing.

Actually this tea was quite good - not too bitter but with a nice sweetness that starts on the tip of the tongue and goes all the way back to the throat. It also possessed an aftertaste for a little longer than the normal Zhuyeqing. A very nice green tea, hand-picked and hand-processed on the slopes of Emei Mountain that screams out to anyone who dares sip of its youthfulness - I AM FRESH GREEN TEA.

Based on our experience as tea pickers and tea processors, are we ready for prime time? I think if one did the math, one would realize that tea from Emei can be bought for a whole lot less than the freshmen class paid for this tea. It cost 15 Yuan for each tea picker to go out and do the picking. There were 22 freshmen along with the Gap Guys and me doing the picking. The tea that Sunee and I, thus, processed cost an astounding 375 Yuan for less than 100 grams of processed tea. PRIME TIME? I think not.

A Return to Zhuyeqing Garden

The Freshmen Class 1 invited the Gap Guys and me to go pick tea with them at the Zhuyqing Garden. Pick tea! Great idea.

Mr. Frank and Ms. Jennifer dropped by our apartment at 0900 on Saturday and we walked back up the hill to the Live Plaza where several of the freshmen were waiting for us and transportation. The Gap Guys, Jennifer and I took a rented car to the garden while the other students took a bus to Emei City and would get a taxi.


Here is Jennifer waiting for the car while we visit with the other students.

The Welcome Sign at the entrance to the Zhuyeqing Museum and Garden.


We had a good time introducing the Gap Guys to some of the other students as we waited for the rest of the freshmen to arrive.

The "koi" and gold fish were especially active this morning so I had to get several shots of them. They looked pretty hungry.

The Zhuyeqing Rock is always a good place to take a few pictures. Still waiting for the others to arrive, we looked for things to keep us entertained.

Finally the rest of the class arrived and Ms. Freda arranged for us to meet our tea lady who took us over to the tea plantation to pick our tea.


The tea lady, Ms. Yang, went around and helped us understand which tea leaves we needed to pick. Here she trains me on what to look for in picking tea. Do I have what it takes to be a professional in the tea industry? With her guidance, I may have a shot at it.

Ms. Freda picking tea as quickly as she possibly can. Actually she was not picking the tea that quickly. I looked into her bag a the end of the picking and I counted 42 leaves.

Bless his little tea picking hands - Admon.

More pickers slaving away at trying to fill up their tea bags.

If one looks closely, one can see the newly formed teabuds among the mature tea leaves.

Ms. Yang seemed to really enjoy training the "waiguo ren" as he attempted to become a professional tea picker. She could speak a little English and we had a great time trying to get me to understand what leaves to pick and what leaves to leave. Leaving the correct leaves seemed to be the key to picking the correct leaves. She was a delightful teacher.

This is what we were looking for according to Ms. Yang. One small leaf attached to the unopen tea bud. These were the best tea leaves to pick.

A great picture of a newly opened tea leaf.

Here two students are bothering me for pictures as I try to fulfill my destiny as a tea picker.

After an hour of picking tea, these three students got bored so they started taking pictures and having a good time. Tea picking is boring!

Here, Mr. Jack, joins the bored trio for picture taking and none tea picking activities.

More freshmen clowning around not doing their class activity of picking tea. Guess none will sign up to the advanced tea picking class coming up soon.

Jon, one of the Gap Guys, conned these students into picking the tea for him. I looked into his tea basket and he only hand 33 tea leaves. No wonder he had to have guards with him all the time.


Here are some of the guys on the other end of the tea rows. Notice their empty tea baskets and bags. No wonder there are no professional men tea pickers. Only women have the hands that are small enough to get to all the good tea buds. Only women have the ability to pick tea from dawn 'til dusk. Only women do not goof around and take stupid pictures. Women also work together with the others in the group and do not wonder far afield and clown around when they are supposed to be picking tea.

This is the official Freshmen Class1 Tea Picking Picture. I will print a couple of these out and have the members of the class sign it and then we will present them to the Gap Guys.

Here is the sum total of all the tea the class picked. The basket is really very small so there is not much tea in the basket. In fact, we did not have enough tea for the tea cooker to mess with. We will have to fry it ourselves. I eventually ended up with the tea for Sunee to fry next week after she gets back from Thailand.


Mr. Frank thinks the fresh-picked tea smelled really good. Or did he? I forgot to ask.

As we walked back to go through the museum, I took these pictures of some of the girls posing for pictures. Not too bad, huh?


Mr. Jack is overwhelmed by the aroma of the freshly picked tea. Or was he? Me thinks he might have been acting, which he is famous for doing.

Here Ms. Jennifer and Ms. Freda pose by a flowering tree. I kept asking what kind of tree it was or what kind of flower. All I got was that it was a PINK FLOWER.

One of the flowers identified as a PINK FLOWER!

Inside the Zhuyeqing Museum

I got to watch the show again and, again, I was not impressed with the length. The whole thing took about ten minutes. I did try to get some better pictures of the lovely lady doing the gaiwan thing which she does here.

This lady obvious has done this before. She pours the water from a pretty good distance from the gaiwan cup. Seen it before and actually done better at many of the local tea shops.

The Sichuan style of pouring water into the gaiwan. This demo lasted about three minutes. I tried to get some good shots but my camera takes longer than three minutes to get ready.

A porcelain figure representing drinking tea in China. Notice the tea stuff around the guy.

The Gap Guys, Jon and Dave, discovered that this wood thing was actually a giant tea pot. I missed this the first time around.

Dave here is doing a really lousy impression of the Sichuan style of pouring tea. He made it appear to be very painful. I fear he does not have a future in the tea industry.

Each exhibit had English translations for us foreigners to read. Here Jon checks out the English to find out what the heck the exhibition is about. Actually Jon was just looking blankly at the Chinese.

Ms. Freda does a very poor job of faking caligraphy. I tried to get her to be more realistic but it is obvious that she is a poor actress. Maybe she is a good caligrapher!

Shopping area in the museum. The tea here was not cheap. In fact, it was very, very expensive.


The "what is it, what is it" photo I had so much success with the week before with Giselle, Cecilia and Taunis. Same picture, different models.

The garden and museum was fun and educational. Afterward we got vans back to the university where we had a typical Emei Shan lunch. Kind of a hot pot thing with chickens and taro floating around in a spicy liquid. Not bad but the chicken was full of bones and took a lot of effort to eat.

A final picture of Ms. Freda enjoying our lunch.