One of the many tea hostesses that inevitably must tire of our continued sipping 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 our clean laundry: Menghai. Our little stockpile of tea samples grows in girth and it is one of Marco’s joys to watch as this ‘collection’ of green gifts grows. Marco strolls throug

A still-active strand of the Tea Horse Road in northwestern Yunnan province where that relentless editor 'time' has changed very little...for now. Caravans still transport goods into remote portions of the mountains. Taken upon our journey along the route in 2006 Much of the Tea Horse Road’s great appeal is the sheer expanse of geography taken in – some estimate (as we did when our team traveled it) that five thousand grand kilometres taking in rafts of culture, language, die

Sour Tea: The Indigenous World’s Treat Within the muggy mists of eastern Burma, amidst the toughened and muscular indigenous minorities of southern Yunnan there can still be found tea traditions that transcend any tea trends, eras or pretentious terms. There are traditions in these slightly spooky mountains that can literally draw a line directly backwards in time to when tea was more than simply a handful desiccated leaves thrown into hot water. Tea hype doesn’t mean anythin

It seems only fair that this first tea entry begins where the ‘green’ begins – tea’s humid and understated roots. Here, where tea has been nurtured virtually unchanged in all of the patient centuries and where still today the green leaf is treated with a reverence that speaks to a long and gentle union with both man and soil. Here it is a food, a friend and an essential. Asia’s great ‘commodity’ here, still retains its primary roles as unifier, cure-all, and simple beverage –