Blog
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A “cante jondo” between emotions and rationality. Seven Essence FF Darjeeling “Duende”
Duende is the name of this tea, that duende which is a place ex-nihilo where there is no map or exercise, principle of creation, of generative power, it’s the mental dress worn by the restless, of those who renounce deep sleep by remaining in the temporal foil between the traveled path and the dreamed, of…
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Love for Country, Reconstruction and Tea. A few words about Yi Bang and Man Gong Village with a 2023 Gushu
What was the land of the emperor’s tea in the 18th century and a trading circle between Myanmar, Calcutta, Kalimpong and Sikkim in the 19th century soon became dust and ashes in the middle of the 1900. The refoundation of Yibang and its prestige started from that old road paved with mud and stone, the…
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The Battle of Điện Biên, the retreats, the ancient tea trees. A sip of historical consciousness with Viet Sun Tủa Chùa sheng pu’er 2024
More than 70 years have passed since the battle of Điện Biên, since the retreat, the rice fields dyed red, the pain everywhere. Our men arrived in that area on old Royal Air Cambodia “Caravelle” flown by Taiwanese pilots who shuttled between Bangkok and Phnom Penh. They jumped on with ever more heartpounding, more and…
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Making a true, authentic tea is sometimes a question of consciousness. Meng Tong Yin Shan Tea Factory Gǔ Xiāng sheng pu’er 2009
I happened to wake up this morning with a sense of nostalgia, that damned stinging feeling, that melancholic regret of what has passed or gone, or been lost. I headed to my “pharmacy,” that’s what I call the place where I keep that messy pile of leaves and ceramics that should appear to be a…
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Gaoshan, the village between uncertainty and change. Bitterleaf “Vision” Gaoshan sheng 2023
Gaoshan is a village in the Yiwu area, a place where about 100 families live, mostly Yi, more specifically Xiangtang. The first time I saw a photo of Gaoshan it portrayed a child under a table and a woman in her sixties with a basket of fruit in her hand, behind her house, she had…
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Metaphysics of Pu’er blend with Moychay 2022 Melting Reality sheng pu’er
We live in an era where you can potentially know everything about a tea, the garden it comes from, the grower, the exact location of the trees, but the tea market has not always been like this. Blends were so popular in the past that there were few single-origin teas before the 2000s. Some of…
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When Pu’er gone in a single day. Dialogue on the present, the past and rites with a 2006 CNNP “Yellow Mark”
When the fragile walls of the pu’er business were crumbling in the early 2000s, many people stood in front of the screens in the Kunming tea market, crystallizing an evocative image, a shared moment of sadness, like those who see their home demolished, those who see their expectations burned, like smokers outside the doors of…
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Discussing the contradictory essence of tea with a pu’er from the ancient land of elephants. TdC 2014 You Le Ya Nuo village sheng pu
I am of the opinion that tea, good tea I mean, should always be accompanied by a good argument. I also remain firmly convinced that it itself must partly be the reason and urge for the conversation, and partly guide it. If we could reconstruct a sort of symposium evening I often think about which…
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Discovering Y Tý: Comparison of two Viet Sun sheng pu’er from a Dao and a H’Mông village
A place of magnificent waterfalls, azaleas and wild peaches, the mountains background seems to give every gesture an additional majesty, a primordial dignity.The small mud-walled houses of Y Tý stand in the green and golden colors of the rice fields, offering rural nuances to that tranquility typical of the “cloudy” land, located at more than…
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Discussing again about Yiwu and authenticity with a 2003 CNNP “Sheng Tai Gu Shu cha” via Camellia Sinensis
Almost 20 years have passed since the declaration of Yiwu as a “Special tourist village of Yunnan”, the program which aimed to attract more and more people to a city which was growing economically at a spasmodic pace and which was obsessively trying to make its authenticity perceived. Often this intention came into conflict with…
Wild Harvested 