16 Days Southwest Yunnan Ancient Tea Culture Tour

You’ll begin your journey to the diverse and captivating province of Yunnan from the capital city, Kunming. Upon arrival at the Kunming International Airport, meet your local guide and transfer to the hotel. And then, you will take a leisurely stroll along the Green Lake, a charming area of teahouses and small boutiques selling handicrafts and beautiful local paintings. If time permits, you will have a Kunming city tour.
Enjoy welcoming dinner of Yunnan Flavouring food with crossing Bridge Rice Noodle and Steam Pot Chicken/Qiguoji.

— Kunming is the capital of southwest China’s Yunnan province, a primarily agricultural province of 45 million. Kunming has a population of five million and is located in one of the world’s most geographically, ethnically, biologically and linguistically diverse regions. Situated at 1,900 meters (6,233ft) above sea level and 25° north of the Equator it has a rather unique and pleasant climate for a Chinese city.

After breakfast, you will have a beautiful driving about 380 kilometers to Jiujia Town of Zhenyuan County. Drive around 5 hours from Kunming to Jiasa Town in Xinping Yi and Dai Autonomous County. Have lunch with Dai ethnic flavor in Jiasa Town.

Jiasa(ê©È÷ in Chinese) is a small town in Xinping County, Yunnan Province. ‘Jiasa’ in Dai language means the street near the beach. Yuanjiang River flows beside the town and brought it fertile land and warm weather. Jiasa is famous for its special minorty group, Huayao Dai. It is a branch of Dai People, and keeps its own features. Huayao Dai People don’t live in the bamboo buildings as Dai People do, they live in a speicla kind of cottage called ÍÁÕÆ·¿(house made of soil). Women wear tattoos on their arms, and they like chewing pinang to dye their teeth black. Tattoos and black teeth are the simble of beauty in traditional Huayao Dai women’s eyes.

After lunch, continue the driving to Zhenyuan Yi, Hani and Lahu Autonomous County. It is 80 Kilometers driving from the downtown to Jiujia Town where you will visit the Qianjiazhai Ancient Tea Trees Growing Area in Ailaoshan Mountain Nature Reserve.

Visit the Qianjiazhai Ancient Tea Trees Growing Area in Ailaoshan Mountain Nature Reserve in the morning; then drive to Puer City.
–Qianjiazhai Ancient Tea Growing Area is located in Jiujia Town of Zhenyuan Yi, Hani, and Lahu autonomous county in Puer City. It lies in the western part of Puerh City and the middle section of the southwestern Yunnan Ailao and Wuliang mountain chains. Within the area’s border is a string of mountains. In fact, mountainous terrain makes up 97.7% of the land. The total area of Zhenyuan County is 4,109.38 km2. The topography is complex, high in the north and lower in the south. The highest point is 3,137 meters above sea level, while the lowest is 774 meters. The county seat of Enle lies at an elevation of 1,080 meters.

Zhenyuan has a subtropical climate, with a yearly average temperature of 18.5°C, 1,284.8mm of annual rainfall, and an average relative humidity of 78%. The Babian, Amo, and Mengtong rivers flow through the area. It was an important stopping point on the Old Tea Horse Road. In 1990, Zhenyuan Yi, Hani, and Lahu Autonomous County was formed.

In 1998, county-level administrative offices were moved from the town of Anban to Enle. The Jiujia township village of Qianjia contains a record in the Guinness Book of World Records for a 2700+-year-old, world tea tree king. This has become one of Zhenyuan’s main tourist attractions.

–Puer City
Situated in the northwest of Yunnan Province, Puer has an important location in China’s southwestern boundary, neighboring Laos, Vietnam and Burma and sharing a 486 kilometers (302 miles) boundary line with these three countries. Kunming is about 550 kilometers (342 miles) from Puer.
Puer is in an important location linking roadway and waterway transportation between the China hinterland and Southeast Asia. Since 1896, it has been opened up as a commerce port, being one of the three towns of trading importance in Yunnan. Puer City was originally called,’Simao City’ and, is famous for its Puer Tea.

Puer consists of many ethnic minorities, such as Lahu, Hani, Wa and Yi. Varied customs make it a colorful city. Eating habits, ceremonies, costumes and folk legends can all be a strong attraction for people who are visiting. In addition, Puer City is the hometown of the well known Puer Tea, and Puer people have diversified ways of handling tea, such as bamboo tube tea, cold tea dish, earth-pot tea and baked tea; all of which you should try.

In the morning,drive up to Puer Tea Gardens, overlooking Puer City where Austin was interviewed by the media. You will explore the Chinese Tea Institute and their library of dried tea leaves before being whisked off to a tea tasting and more interviews.
Visit the Puer tea factory and experience how local people cook the Puer tea cakes.

In the afternoon, transfer around 2 hours to Jinghong City. Then continue the driving to Menglun Tropical Botanical Garden in Mengla County; Stay at Menglun Botanical Garden Hotel

After a noodle breakfast, visit Menglun Tropical Botanical Garden. Situated 103 kilometers, or 3 hour ride, from Jinghong, the Tropical Botanical Garden was founded in 1958 and is currently playing an important role in research in the areas of medicinal plants, taxonomy, economic plants and biochemistry. This garden proudly holds 3,000 species of plants, one of the richest botanical concentrations all over the world.

After visiting Menglun Tropical Botanical Garden, drive along a winding road through a tropical rain forest and stopped briefly at a rubber tree orchard on the way to Yiwu.

Take a bumpy dirt road to see an 800yr old tea tree overlooking a gorgeous lush valley in Zhengshan Mountain. On the way back you walk along the Tea Horse Trail which begins in Yiwu village and goes all the way to Tibet.

Our next stop is He Tian Neng’s old tea workshop where you drink tea and see the stone blocks used to press tea cakes. Mr. He then will take you to his newer workshop where you watch as workers make puer tea cakes by hand using the following method:
Full tea leaves and buds (2 leaves to 1 bud) are picked and collected in baskets.
The leaves are spread out on woven trays and dried in the sun for several hours.
Once dried the leaves are steamed under low heat for about 30 seconds to bring the moisture back and make the leaves pliable.
The moist leaves are wrapped in a cloth and pressed by hand into a disc shape.
A heavy stone press is then placed on top of the tea cake and a worker stands on top of this press, rotating his wade in a circular motion for about a minute.

In about 10 minutes the stone press is removed and the cloth covered cake is moved to a shelf for drying.
After 6hrs or so the cloth is removed from the tea cake and it may be wrapped in tea paper.
Puer tea cakes may be used to make tea immediately, however because the leaves have not been cooked they will continue to oxidize over time and will mature into a deep rich flavor in 5-10 years.

Yiwu is one of the 6 famous puer tea mountains and home to a puer tea museum which we visited along with the start of the Tea Horse Trail. In the evening you hang out in the small Yiwu Village, have tea and beer in front a shop and fired off roman candles in the street. Glenn fired an errant shot, narrowly missed Kevin’s head, before we retired to our slightly rough accommodations for the night.

Today we got the chance to make our own puer tea cakes at a small Cha Ma Shi factory in Youle, another of of the 6 famous puer tea mountains. After steaming, pressing and wrapping 2 cakes each we really got to experience how naturally simple the whole process is compared to other types of tea which are fried, rolled and processed substantially more. The only downside I see to puer cakes is the lengthy aging process which is necessary for the deep rich taste to develop.

From this small tea factory we traveled DaDuGang, the owner of the largest tea plantation in Asia.  Terraced fields of 30yr old tea bushes could be seen in all directions and the view was breathtaking.  In stark contrast to the small factory we’d seen earlier in the day, the DaDuGang factory was filled with massive processing equipment, primarily for green though they make 107 different varieties, which had a very industrial feeling to it.  We had some tea with the owners of DaDuGang while Austin had a long discussion about policies and international tea trade.
Trnasfer back to Puer City in the late afternoon.

Drive to Menghai County, visit Nannuo Mountain Tea Plantation and Yunnan Tea Research Institute. Nanuo is one of six tea Mountains, the origin of tea of the world, today we will visit a tea plantation with history of over 600 years old.

At Yunnan Tea Research Institute, we will be given a lecture on Yunnan minority tea culture while enjoy the tea performance of courses of Flaming Tea from Ai’Ni ethnic minority, cool mixed tea of Jinou, Earth-pot tea of La’hu and so on.

Visit Jinzheng Octagonal Pavilion, and then drive to Lancang Lahu Autonomous County. Transfer to Huimin Town which is 50 kilometers away from Lancang Lahu Autonomous County.

Get up in the early morning, visit Jingmai and Mangjing Ancient Tea Mountains in Huimin Town.
The Jingmai Mangjing Ancient Tea Association consists of 209 member households from two administrative villages, namely Jingmai and Mangjing, which are composed of six natural villages. Some of the poorest populations are often ethnic minorities in border regions where the Jingmai Mangjing Ancient Tea Association is located.

The popularity of ancient tea among Chinese tea drinkers has rapidly increased in recent years and can be produced in excellent quality from Jingmai and Mangjing’s tea trees. The number of leaves picked from ancient trees is currently 10 times higher than that of the fresh leaves picked from cultivated tea plants.

The Jingmai Mangjing Tea Association makes up most of the Jingmai Ancient Tea garden, which covers an area of 1600 ha, 910 ha of which are organic. The government has declared the Jingmai Ancient Tea Garden an important area for protection and began promoting ecotourism. The government also emphasizes organic management to increase the value of tea products.
Transfer to Menglian Dai, Lahu and Va Autonomous County and visit Nayun Ancient Town of Dai ethnic people.

–About Jingmai Ancient Puer Tea
Ancient Pu-erh tea tree, natural growing environment, organic tea leaves, picked in early spring season before rain, sundried Maocha, pressed with stone mode…the core value of traditional Pu-erh is consisted of all these factors. There are many famous ancient Pu-erh tea mountains located in Yunnan province, and every kind of ancient Pu-erh has its own unique flavor because of the different growing earth, weather, environment etc. in different mountains.

Awazon “Jinmai Ancient Tea” raw cake is made of pure ancient tea tree leaves from Jingmai ancient tea mountain. Only top grade early spring tea leaves and buds from over thousand year old ancient tea tree are used as raw material for making this raw Pu-erh tea cake. This is the best choice for Pu-erh connoisseurs and collectors.

Please note that only ancient Pu-erh tea can last over 15 infusions, which is a very important factor to judge if it’s real ancient Pu-erh or not. For this Awazon “Jinmai Ancient Tea”, the brewed liquor becomes much better from the 3rd infusion on. You will feel a very good sweet aftertaste in deep throat and full mouth with lingering orchid aroma. This is a unique flavor of ancient Pu-erh tea from Jingmai and Mangjing ancient tea tree. What surprising is this flavor will be getting stronger and better after years of aging. And this feature makes our Awazon “Jinmai Ancient Tea” raw Pu-erh tea cake much more valuable for collection.

Drive one hour and a half to Ximeng County, visit the Ancient Tea group and the original forest in Fodianshan Mountain with 2458 meters above the sea level. There are 19.5 square kilometers ancient tea trees in Fodianshan Mountain, which is well-known as one of the 8 famous tea mountains in Puer City.
Meet with the tea factory in the afternoon.

–The Va ethnic minority, with a population of 396,610, lives in Ximeng, Cangyuan, Menglian, Gengma, Lancang, Shuangjiang, Zhenkang and Yongde counties in southwestern Yunnan Province. Some are found scattered in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and the Dehong Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture. Ximeng and Cangyuan counties are the main places where the Va people live in compact communities. In the areas where the Va people live, there are also Hans, Yis, Dais, Hanis, Lahus, Jingpos, Blangs, De’angs and Lisus.

Ximeng, Cangyuan, Menglian and Langcang are situated between the Lancang and Nu rivers, blocked by undulating mountain ridges some 2,000 meters above sea level. Traditionally this area was called the Ava hilly region.

With a subtropical climate, the fertile Ava region has plentiful rainfall and only 40 frost-free days a year. It is suitable for the growth of dry rice, paddy, maize, millet, buckwheat, potatoes, cotton, hemp, tobacco and sugarcane, as well as such subtropical fruits as bananas, pineapples, mangoes, papayas and oranges.

Optional Day tour in Ximeng County:
Tour include Fodianshan Mountain Ancient Tea Forest, Dragon Pool, Likan Waterfalls and Wa ethnic villages.

Visit the Mengsuo Dragon Pool and Wa ethnic villages in the morning;
A long but nice driving from Ximeng County to Lincang City via Shuangjiang County. Visit The 10, 000 Acres Wild Ancient Tea Trees in Shuangjiang County.

One day Optional tea tour to Bingdao Village and visit the ancient tea trees as well as the Mengku Tea Factory in Mengku Town.
It is aournd 50KM from Mengku Town to Bingdao Village, take a local minibus to the village from a bumpy road, then trek to the village. Bingdao(±ùµº) , a small and poor Luhu ethnic village surrounded by green mountains which is the origin of the tea plantation in China. You can see several ancient tea trees around the village as well as the Lahu ethnic people with colorful costumes. Visit Bingdao Elementary School, exchange the culture with local ethnic students, prepare some gifts to these children. Cross the school, you will find some huge ancient tea trees with more than 2000 years old.

–Mengku Daxueshan Virgin Forest and the Ancient Tea Trees
The 10, 000 Acres Wild Ancient Tea Trees Garden is located in Mengku Town (Û¿âÏç) in Shuangjiang County. The wood has a total area of 12, 000 acres and a history of more than 2,500 years. Home to over 80, 000 ancient wild tea trees, it is the largest, oldest and highest tea trees wood ever found in this planet.

Sightseeing and Activity:Lincang Tea Culture and Customs Garden and Lincang tea factories
Visit Lincang Tea Culture and Customs Garden and Lincang tea factories;
We had breakfast around the corner from our hotel before walking through a tea retail area where we learned how to evaluate puer tea cakes by looking at the consistency of the leaves. For lunch we had some overly fresh fish which wiggled when dropped into the hot bowl, even after being sliced.

In the afternoon we picked up one of the servers from the the morning tea house and headed up to a park dedicated to the Yunnan ethnic minorities and their tea traditions. We saw a garden of transplanted 400-500yr old tea trees and explored this vast (and deserted) park including a hilltop graveyard, a tea pot courtyard, and expansive paths with beautiful views of the mountains and town of Lincang. The park officials even arranged for two girls to perform a traditional tea ceremony for us where they boiled the water with a small fire, roasted the tea leaves with bamboo paper and bowed as they offered us each a cup. The sang traditional songs which were quite unique to my ear.
One of the tea girls came with us to a fancy Thai style restaurant (which she suggested) and even sang us 2 songs on the bus home to thank us for taking her out!  We went for a walk through the streets of Lincang, watching what seemed like the entire city out in the streets watching various acrobatic performances or simple tai chi like group dances.

–Lincang Tea Culture and Customs Garden

Lying in the suburb of the Lin Xian g District, the 110 hectare scenic zone is one of the 25 most heated tourist destinations of Yunnan Province. It is an all-around man-made tourist zone for sightseeing, leisure, recreation and cultural exploration. Wandering in the tea garden, one can not only learn the far – reaching Chinese Tea culture and tradition but also take part in the whole process of preparing tea. In the mean time one will be exposed to the colorful folk customs of the local nationalities.

–Lincang City is a prefecture-level city,With Lancang ( Mekong ) River to the east, Lincang region is located in the Southwest of Yunnan. It borders Myanmar and includes eight counties, including the only two Wa Autonomous Counties in Yunnan — Cangyuan and Ximeng, occupying 50% of the total population of Wa nationality in Yunnan.

Drive to Fengqing County via Yunxian County in the morning. Visit Dianhong Black Tea Company in Fengshan Town.
More lush countryside as we drove north passing through terraced fields of rice and tea.  After checking into our hotel we drove to Dian Hong, a large tea company specializing in black tea.  We toured their museum and enjoyed many cups of tea while Austin talked business and setup a factory tour for us the following day. Afterwards we went to their tea institute and saw a field with 71 rows of different tea bushes!  It was amazing to see the difference between them, even though they were all “tea” and had the serrated edges, many of them looked vastly different.  This research institute has over 200 varietals of tea which they are studying.

Dian Hong owners took us out for a fancy dinner and afterward we did some more exploring around the city.

Visit Dianhong Black Tea plantation and meet with Yunnan Dianhong Black Tea Group for the cooperation.
After breakfast we took 4WD Jeeps through a rough winding road to see a Dian Hong black tea factory and enjoy a few cups of strong black tea.  The most unusual feature was the 3rd floor bamboo drying floor where tea was spread out to dry and then dumped through a rectangular hole for processing.

Afterward we took another breathtaking drive on the way to Da Li.  After browsing two hotels, the third was chosen for us, located right in the heart of the historic old city.  We checked in, had a great meal and walked the bustling streets including the main drag nicknamed “Foreigners Street” where we saw our first non Chinese people outside of our group.  The evening was spent at various street side shops as we explored this lively city.

–Yunnan Dianhong Black Tea Group Co., Ltd
(Hereinafter referred to as “Dianhong”) was founded on Mar. 8, 1939. It was originally named as Shunning Experimental Tea Factory and then renamed as Fengqing Tea Factory when the county’s name changed from Shunning into Fengqing in 1954. The famous tea “Dianhong” was kept being exported to England, US and other countries since 1940s.

Since the foundation of new China in 1949, Dianhong Group has been authorized as state enterprises of black tea for export. “Dianhong special grade Congou Black Tea” was designated by the States council as gift tea for states foreign affairs. Nowadays Dianhong has existed 70 years as the biggest private share-holding tea manufacture in China; it unified the planting, processing, manufacturing, research, export and marketing as a whole.

We have total asset of 23.4mollion Yuan and organic tea gardens covering 3,335 hectares, among which 1.334 hectares have passed IMO organic authentication of Switzerland.

We have 84 preliminary tea-processing factories and 4 CTC product lines; its annual tea-processing capacity reaches about 10,000 tons. We also have a tea research nursery base with the most abundant varieties in China. We can provide more than 100 types of tea products, including Black Tea, Pu-er Tea, Green Tea, Jasmine tea, tea bags and so on.

Dianhong was granted the import and export license in 1996 and founded the Tea import and export section in 2009. We have established business relationship with customers from Russia & CIS countries, European countries, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, etc.

Reputation
The “Feng brand ”tea products was awarded many prizes such as “states gold prize”£¬ “Chinese famous brand” , “States Foreign Affairs Gift Tea”, and apprised as the “Chinese famous tea brand”, and “Yunnan Famous brand”.“Feng brand” Pu’er tea, and the compact Tea won the gold prize at Guangzhou international Tea festival, and the “the king of the tea” at the fist “Yunnan Pu’er Tea Expo” respectively. “Wangziguang” brand Green tea was endowed the honorary titles as “Yunnan consumers’ beloved goods”£¬and “Yunnan’s famous brand”.

The Congou Black Tea, which produced by Dianhong(the original Yunnan Fengqing Tea factory), was presented by the Yunnan provincial governor He Zhiqiang to queen Elisabeth¢òin 1986.

A piece of Pu’er compact tea, which was made of tea leaves of a 3200 years splendid tea ancestor (the oldest cultivated tea being founded in the world so far), was auctioned at a price of 400 thousand Yuan at the Shenzhen Tea Expo in 2007, which shocked the tea markets.

Dianhong Group ranks in the first hundred of States tea industry, as a States leading enterprise of poverty alleviation and agricultural industrialization. It makes a great contribution to the peasants’ income, financial growth, enterprise efficiency, and local economy.

Outlook
In order to meet the needs of production and operation scale, expanding and enhancing enterprise core competitiveness, Dianhong established a development idea of “to start the second venture ,to build up the Dianhong soul and a splendid Dianhong” in early 2009.

We plan to implement “The overall relocation project” within one year. The project is being carried on gradually and stably, and it is expected to be completed in Oct. 2010. Then, an excellent tea industry which unifies the “mountain, river, garden£¬forests£¬tea ,and human ”as a whole will emerge in the colorful Yunnan province.

The director Wang Tianquan and the staffs welcome all of the clients and friends warmly from the worldwide to taste and share the Dianhong culture together!

After an early buffet breakfast we picked up the Da Li museum curator and drove into the mountains towards a Buddhist temple which we then hiked up to.  The head monk graciously served us tea which was processed on the premises and steeped with water from the nearby mountain streams.  We spent some time exploring the grounds of the temple, wandering through the dense forest with Da Li city far below.
Back on the bus we drove along the waterfront on our way to the famous Xiaguantoucha tea company.  We were given a rare tour of their museum and shown aged puer cakes worth over $10k each!  Xiaguantoucha produces 70k tons of Puer a year, with only 3k of this being exported.  We were told the largest portion of these exported puer cakes are sold to French pharmacies where they are believed to reduce high blood pressure.

In the evening we walked along the bustling streets of Da Li and found a restaurant down a side alley where we surprisingly ran into three visiting Canadians and enjoyed a delicious meal.  After dinner we had a few drinks along a festive street with tables lining a rushing stream.
Take the night train back to Kunming and overnight in the train.

Dali-Kunming

Departure from Kunming