Look closely, real, blue sky with clouds. Clear fresh mountain air. Relaxed, casual, friendly people. That’s Menghai. All kinds of ethnics, aside from us Hans. Really heavenly place, the Deep South of China, far from the Mandarin government, where whatever the Dai prince says still goes….
From Maocha to brick in a few minutes, and literally hot off the press, the 250gm brick is a commissioned effort by Mr. Wang, based out of Guangzhou, who handles all the wheeling and dealing while the Bai’s make the orders. Mr. Wang says the Cantonese are demanding the Sheng Pu-Erh in large quantities again- after all, they prefer the real, slow, naturally aged Pu-erh. Made to naturally ripen in about 8 years in Guangzhou(translate: hot and humid), Mr. Wang no longer commissions Shu Pu-Erhs. Those are for the Mandarins in the North, he says with a quick sneer….
From Bulang mountain, these Sheng Bing will age well, as it has enough bitters and a nice fresh olive ‘gan’. The peacock cakes we have at the shop represent the taste of this region, the peacock being their tribal icon. This Zhong Cha brand Sheng Bing is the Yunnan /China Inc. original factory offshoot. Confusing? Well, again, the right mountain and right producers is what matters…. After all, in Berkeley we have Chez Panisse, and many chefs from there have gone on to open even greater restaurants of their own….
Not my photo. This 3200 year old Pu-erh tree was auctioned for 1,750,000 RMB for 500gm(but only 100gm made) a couple days ago. That is about $57,800 USD for 100gm.
Miss Bai and her brother, mixed race of Dai ethnic, Han, and a couple of other races, own and operate this Pu-Erh factory, an offshoot of the old Menghai Factory. They have their own touch about things: Miss Bai being a woman, runs a very clean facility with a particular perfectionist attitude towards quality in every piece of Bingcha or brick. Mr. Bai, her brother, is philosophical about things. The 1800 year old Pu-erh tree just died a couple of years ago here. Their own village has been care taking the trees for over 800 recorded years. It doesn’t matter, he says, if the Camellia Sinensis arbor type tree is incorrectly named Assamica, even though clearly Assam did not have a tea culture going back a couple thousand years, nor own existant trees in the thousands of years old. It’s all misclassified, but the Pu-erh folks don’t care. There is way too much demand for their tea and what goes into botanical encyclopedia concerns only the academics.
I am not sure I agree. The Chinese have always been a closed world and don’t play with the rest. They have way too many people, things happen in tremendous paces, and resources are too rich for them to worry about the outside world. Even the overseas Chinese tea merchants don’t care. I am the only one who complains about this it seems. Oh, the injustice of calling Camellia Sinensis Pu-erh, into Camellia Sinensis Assamica. Makes no sense to me at all.
Seven Sons Bing Cha: 7 pieces weighing 357 gm a piece, wrapped in bamboo husk per stack, a tradition going back to the Chamagudao(tea horse ancient route) which started here in Menghai, where slow moving, hardy Yunnan horses saddled up with equally weighing stacks moving tea around the world over land.