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Our driver pulls over, four of us climb out of the car, and
then we hike up a narrow path to reach the workers. The women
wear scarves—some handwoven, some embroidered, and some
decorated with silver balls and other trinkets. The men’s faces
are cragged and as dark as saddle leather from lifetimes spent
in the sun. We pepper them with questions: How old are these
tea trees? How many generations has your family worked as tea
pickers? Do you process your own tea? These folks don’t seem
too surprised to see us or to hear our questions. It’s tea-picking
season in Yunnan’s tea mountains, and over the past few years
more and more visitors, including myself, have come in search
of Pu’erh tea—the most valuable and collected of all the world’s
teas—and to explore the birthplace of tea.
Tea is the second most popular drink in the world after water.
It was discovered in 2737 B.C. by Emperor Shen Nung—also
known as the “Divine Husbandman”—when some tea leavesWe
are deep in the tea mountains of
Xishuangbanna Prefecture
in China’s Yunnan Province.
Villages inhabited by the Dai,
Bulang, Lahu, Akha, and other ethnic
minorities lie across ravines
or peek out from the forest.
Glancing up a hillside, I spot people
perched in the uppermost
branches of some tea trees.
The tea plant originated in forests in and around southwestern China.
Whether growing on trees in the mountains of Yunnan or bushes on
terraced hillsides in Sichuan, leaves must be delicately picked by hand.