Blog – Page 2 – Teaurchin

A tea trekkers guide to Gua Feng Zhai - Teaurchin

Gua Feng Zhai 刮风寨 Gua Feng Zhai is the most remote village in Yiwu. The first time we tried to visit, heavy rains had closed the road for a week.... Read more...

A few of my favourite pots

I've been messing around on Pinterest lately, originally because I was curious to see what all the fuss was about, and secondly because it's actually a neat way to virtually collect "Terrific... Read more...

A tribute to Miles

Ok so this is pretty cheesy, but Belle & I thought it would be cool to do a commemorative bing to celebrate the birth of our son. Seeing as he's... Read more...

A new tea urchin...

So if you’re wondering why I haven’t posted in awhile, here’s a very good reason: A newly born tea urchin with his grandmother! Our baby boy Miles was born into... Read more...

郑四隆 Zheng Si Long factory, Yiwu

As mentioned in an earlier post, Belle and I carried our Lao Man E maocha halfway across Banna, so we could press it at 郑四隆 Zheng Si Long factory in Yiwu.... Read more...

Da MengLong

There are two tea producing centers called Mengsong, one near Nannuo, and the other on Da Menglong mountain to the south east of Bulang mountain, right on the Burmese border.... Read more...

Weird things I've eaten in Yunnan

7 years of living in Asia has slowly rid me of my food phobias. When I was a kid and didn't know better, I loved to eat the steamed chicken... Read more...

How is Puer processed differently from other teas?

After reading one of my recent posts, “Learning how to identify gushu & make maocha”, Lew Perin (of the invaluable Chinese tea lexicon Babelcarp) asked me how the processing of Puer differs... Read more...

Chong Kyong Won - The Bear Grylls of Puer

You meet a lot of interesting characters on the tea road - adventurers for whom tea is a journey, vendors obsessively hunting the perfect leaf, curious backpackers of the unspoiled,... Read more...

From Lao Man E with love

OCT 19 From Lao Man E with love Like many venturing into the wild world of sheng puer, I started with the palatable, easy to drink mountains - Yiwu, Nannuo... Read more...

Begging for leaves in Lao Ban Zhang

Lao Ban Zhang is widely regarded as the "King of Puers". This dusty village in the Bulang mountain range, near the Myanmar border, produces some of the priciest puer in... Read more...

He Kai Ancient Tea Garden

Not entirely satisfied with the trees we had seen in Yiwu, we set out to visit the ancient tea gardens of He Kai (贺开 but pronounced "Hor kai" in Banna),... Read more...