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Laobanzhang has long been an example of ambivalence. Its bitterness contrasts with the sweetness that pervades you a moment later, the exaltation of its essence opposed to the condemnation of the upheaval caused by its own greatness. Its leaves can be as bitter and severe in youth as they are sweet and complex as they…
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Everything about tea is born from an initial effort and suffering, and through these it is consecrated in a sort of spiritual life that is strengthened over time, in its determined and individual character. Tea is not the immediate gift of nature. Immediacy in tea always comes at a high price. Laobanzhang is experimenting a…
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Everything has remained much as it was in many Sichuan villages along the Chama Gudao, or so it seems. The architecture changes radically from Chengdu to Kangming, from Yading along the Yangtze to Lushi where this image originates. In some areas everything seems unchanged, some seem to have survived the urban ravages of the Sino-Japanese…
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Mengdingshan is one of the areas of Sichuan best known to tea enthusiasts, a universe of its own, an almost oracular function of a system apparently disconnected from the world with gardens immersed in the clouds that cover them creating an intense environmental and philosophical contrast, a metaphor for the history of this region which…
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Yongde county is a mountainous area, rich in forests, where nature seems to have had free will for most of the centuries, slopes and ancient trees surround Mangfeicun protecting it in a landscape and cultural amnioticism. In Yongde county alone there are at least 22 ethnic minorities, many of which are involved in harvesting, curing…
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In the recent past of Pu’er we have often witnessed a forced association of tea with its most narcissistic and aesthetic-economic dimension, to then observe the deflagration of this concept by those who sought more the practicality of taste and pleasantness in its more utilitarian sense. Without recalling how much before and after the events…
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Extraordinary teas are born in the hills of Zhenghe, and I am not referring to the subtle and aristocratic traits of a Bai Hao Yin Zhen, but to the more rustic and bourgeois ones of Bai Mu Dan and Shoumei, teas whose time is only able to give decadent splendor unattainable for virtuous tea who…
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Nannuoshan is located halfway between two large cities of Xishuangbanna, Menghai and Jinghong, and has long been a destination for tourists and enthusiasts who crave the cakes of this mountain, who hike the summit in the day and return home with tea bought for be given to family and friends. Now it’s always good to…
Wild Harvested 