Blog
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An Antidote to Boredom. Seven Essence Darjeeling Ennui
Ennui, boredom, the name of this tea, the strange sensation that overwhelms you when nothing happens, when everything forces you to remain still, like an old wreck of a bus stopped in the middle of nowhere, and you there, with an empty gaze, with a half-extinguished cigarette between your fingers, without knowing where you will…
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Tea as a contrast to immediacy and as an aid to living time. Viet Sun Thương Sơn sheng pu’er 2016
I think there is immense value in dwelling on the traditions that tie us to the past. We live in an age that has forgotten the importance of living time, of the slow maturation of ideas and things. Rather than living, we grope in a era that tends at times to reduce life to mere…
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A mystical, primordial village that gave refuge to outlaws, tea merchants, heroic loggers and ghosts. Huang Cao Ba told with a 2023 old trees sheng pu’er
Huang Cao Ba is a village of less than 800 souls, a respectable number considering the average of the nearby ones. Although it lives on a simple economy, based mostly on the production of food to be consumed on site, on livestock and agriculture, it can boast a certain basic well-being and the historical prestige…
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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…
Wild Harvested 