Quest for the King of Tea Trees

So just a little after 8:30 Nikita and I arrived at the tea shop. We walked over to MeiMei to sit down and set the plan. He told me he got up late this morning. He only had time for either meditation or food. He said he chose meditation. He ordered a hot chocolate.

I showed him on the map where we needed to go. Then I showed him the Chinese and English writing the woman did for me at Mekong last night. We both sort of assumed we would take the bus towards Menghai and get off in Nannuoshan.

I told him there were two bus stations. I thought we would need to go to the short distance bus station. The long distance bus station was just a little bit further if we were at the wrong one. So after he finished his hot chocolate, we started walking. He picked up a few bananas on the way. I told him I had some in my bag.

The walk seemed longer than I thought. We asked a few people and we kept getting sent different directions. So we hopped in a taxi. He showed the driver the place on the map which also had the Chinese and English words. I paid for the taxi.

We were there in no time. He bought the bus tickets and showed the woman at the ticket counter the name of Nannoushan in Chinese. It was 15 yuan each and the bus was leaving in fifteen minutes. The woman at the gate motioned for us to sit in the chair next to her. I ran off to the restroom. When I got back, Nikita said our bus was here and we could board. We sat in the two closest seats to the driver. Once the driver got on, Nikita showed him my paper showing Nannoushan in Chinese. He shook his head, yes. We hoped he would tell us when we were there.

I figured it would be at least a 1/2 hour so I looked at the scenery, but every once in a while closed my eyes. After 1/2 hour, I paid close attention. I could tell this was now tea grown in the hills and no longer rubber. We were climbing higher as well. At around 45 minutes, the driver announced Nannoushan. We were the only two that got out. It was 10:30.

So even though it was unspoken, Nikita would be the communicator for the most part. I was the picture taker, communicator helper, one to notice when communications were going wrong, and logistics???

Nikita had a Russian/Chinese phrasebook so he would do better with communications anyway. I only had my three Chinese words where I wanted to go, but they were key.

There were several small vendors selling things at the side of the road. So Nikita showed an older Chinese woman the word Banpolaozhai in Chinese. I can't remember if I asked him to find out the distance. But the question was asked. It sounded like it would be 6 kilometers. She pointed to the road just behind where she was standing. It looked like it went over the highway and then who knows where. We took it.

It had rained in Jinghong City the previous night. Here in Nannoushan, it was higher up in the mountains but was still very misty. The sun was definitely not out and we were glad. It would have really been hot. The road we were on was concrete but was going uphill. Every once in a while someone would go by on motorcycle or less frequently in a car. They just sort of stared at us.

The first sign of tea bushes was exciting even if they were the cultivated variety. We went to examine them. We were in a sub-tropical forest. There were so many plants around. We saw banana trees, flowers, bamboo trees, other kinds of fruit trees, etc.

All of it was covered in this deep mist. We could hear cars and motorcycles coming up or down the road, way before we could see them. We kept climbing. We got to a group of workers on the road. They were putting cement on a different section of the road that was dirt. Nikita asked what looked like the foreman, if we were still on the right path. He pointed up the hill. He did add one direction. When we come to an intersection, we should bear to the left. This was all done through sign language, body language, and his hands. We kept climbing.

We came to our first crossroads, a small village, and stayed to the left. Shortly afterward, we passed by a house where construction work was going on. Just after that, Nikita spied another house that actually looked like it had a tea shop attached. We peeked in. There was a room for tea tasting with a small amount of puerh cakes lining the walls. In the room next door, were huge bags of tea ready to be sold or made into tea cakes. We didn't know. There was also some tea drying outside.

We went in the room set up for tea tasting. The owner appeared and sat down. He made us some tea. It was nice to sit for a while. We had already walked 1 1/2 hours and probably needed a break.

We tried sheng cha, which is the green puerh. It is not fermented so the liquor is light colored. The owner's friend came to sit down and drink tea. The owner could tell we knew a little something about tea. We told him we were going to see the old tea trees. And of course we knew the difference between sheng cha and shou cha. Between the four of us there was some Russian, English, and Chinese spoken. But it felt like we were communicating in the same language. Since Nikita had a phrasebook, he was able to tell them our nationalities.

He also tried his plastic card with them to see if they would taste any difference. The two guys seemed to think it was some sort of voodoo magic and they weren't buying it. They didn't think there was any difference with and without the plastic card.

I always feel guilty in these situations wondering if we should pay for tea or buy something. I told Nikita this. He said not to worry. He asked me if I had ever given people tea for free. I said, of course, all the time. Then he just shrugged his shoulders. He said, they don't expect anything.

So after a little more than half hour, we were off again. The tea shop owner pointed that we should still continue on the same road, uphill of course. We thanked him and said goodbye. We happened upon a tiny little store and I bought Nikita and I some water. I wish we would have bought some snacks, but there was nothing besides packaged foods and we had no clue what would be inside.

We kept climbing. Shortly afterward we came to another village and a crossroad. We kept climbing on the main road and it was still upwards. All along, we were looking for tea trees versus the cultivated bushes. We were definitely starting to see some wild tea. We just had no idea how old the trees were. It was still thrilling. Here we were in China, the original place tea was discovered, and we were so close to the hundred year old trees.

Tea was discovered accidentally. Shen Nung was in the forest naming and eating various plants around 4000 years ago. Sometimes the plants or roots he ate made him sick. One day a tea leaf fell in his pot. He felt energized. He found that when he ate something bad for him, this tea plant would make him feel better.

Nikita and I talked about picking some tea on way back down and just brewing it unprocessed to see what it tasted like. We both thought it would be a good experiment. I noticed that there was no one out in the forest picking tea. I could see lots of plants that were awaiting picking, now that I was an expert plucker : )

We came to another house. A young guy was on the roof sorting tea or removing stems or both. We asked about the tea trees again. He pointed down the road. He had a bench outside his house. We sat on it. I had two bananas in my bag that had gotten squishy. I asked Nikita if he wanted one. We both ate one. The young guy came off the roof and motioned for us to come in his home. He had the tea table and chairs just inside. We sat down. We had been walking for three hours now. It was still all uphill.

He had two kinds of tea in bags on his table. We smelled both of them. He made the first one which was a sheng cha. It was very light colored green tea. To be honest, I liked the other guys tea that we tried about an hour ago better.

His mother or mother in law was in the room doing embroidery. His wife was in and out. So was his son who was about 1-2 years at the most.

We drank this tea for a little while. Nikita was really interested in the other tea he smelled. It didn't smell like puerh and he was trying to see what it was. It turned out that it was black tea or red tea as they call it in China. It was good and we both liked it better than the first tea. It seemed to both of us that it was rare to find this kind of tea in these parts. Nikita said he had some friends in Russia that would like the tea and he thought he would buy some. He also tried the little plastic trick with this farmer and he wasn't buying it either. The puerh tea had already gotten watery/soupy tasting to me. Soon the red tea would go too.

Nikita told the farmer that he wanted to buy some. I think the farmer was honored that we liked it that much to buy it. He shook his head saying he couldn't buy any. There was absolutely no way he would accept money but he gave us both two baggies full of tea. He wrote the tea name and his phone number on a piece of paper. He inserted one in each bag. His son had been so shy at first. Now he was playing with his fathers hat and being sort of a ham for us.

So we were thinking of maybe going a little further on the road to see which way it ended up. We were almost to the very top of these hills and it seemed like this road was starting to go downhill.

We were getting ready to go and the farmer was heading out with us. I had put my hat on a long time ago as well as bug repellent. Now I was putting on suntan lotion.

The three of us started walking. We weren't really sure if he was taking us back to Nannoushan or pointing us in the right direction of the tea trees. Or maybe there was some short cut we would have missed. We were already off the concrete path and on a dirt road.

We walked by a lot of wild tea trees. At one point he was pointing that all these were wild. I wrote on my paper 100, 300, 500? I was just trying to get an idea so we would know how to identify the age.

I think he said they were like 30 year old trees. Ok, well at least that was a starting point. I didn't care really how old the trees were. I had walked all day in the forest with tea trees and drank teas that farmers made by hand in these forests. It was a pretty good day!

Well, soon enough we were off the dirt road and on to a path in the forest. We kept walking. We would go up and then we would go down. This was either a crazy short cut to Nannoushan or it was possibly to show us some older trees he knew about in the forest.

Eventually he pointed to a tree and Nikita said he thought he heard him say it was 300 years old. Amazing!!!! We kept walking and there was a blue sign on the next tree he pointed to. Our farmer told us it was 800 years old. Wow! We stopped to look at it. I touched the tree and the leaves and took some pictures.

So everyone who lives in this area must know where this tree is. How naive we were thinking that we would ever find this tree on our own. We kept walking in the forest. It was sprinkling a little bit and I had put on my rain jacket. We walked a little more maybe 10-15 minutes and then came to a little hut. Just beyond the hut was the 1000 year old tea tree. It was fenced off and had a few pieces of bamboo propping it up in spots. There was also a blue sign in Chinese. I was so excited and thrilled. When we got to the tree a woman appeared and she invited us to her hut for some tea. Her tea was made from this 1000 year old tree.

She also brought us some snacks as Nikita was starving. We had walked just over 4 hours now. First she found some cookies and brought some cold rice and bread. Then later she cooked up some greens for us. We ate the greens and then drank some of the water from the greens as soup.

She kept pouring us tea. It smelled and tasted a little different for both of us. We asked how much it was and we both bought some. I mean how could we not? Our friend that brought us here was probably just as excited for us that we were here as we were excited about being here. Everyone was smiling and happy and drinking good tea and some how communicating with our facial expressions even without saying a word. All four of us loved tea and we were all drinking together.

So eventually we knew we would have to leave. Plus it was past 3:30 and we still had to figure out how to get down the mountain. It had started raining pretty heavily now. The path would be slippery and wet. At first I just put my rain jacket on and gave my umbrella to Nikita and our friend. Then the trail got too narrow. Our friend broke two huge banana leaves off the plant. It was probably 8 inches wide and over a foot long. There was a bend in the plant that made it have a tent shape. They gave me the umbrella back and each used the plant leaf as an umbrella. We walked up and down. Then mostly down. I sort of wondered where we would end up.

Eventually after about an hour, we got to a crossroads. The cement path was going in two directions. We had just crossed a gate with a wooden sculpture of a woman. It was the sign for one of the villages we passed earlier. I took a picture of the sign on the way up.

From here to the bottom took us about 1 1/2 to 2 hours on the way up the hill. It would take us less than that on the way down. Nikita again tried to give our friend some money. He would not accept it. We thanked him again for a day Nikita and I knew we would remember the rest of our lives.

The farmer walked up the hill and we walked down the hill. It had stopped raining by now. As soon as he left all I could say to Nikita is that I feel like I should kiss you or something. What just happened? Was that a dream?

We would have been happy just walking on this road several hours earlier. Just walking amongst what we knew were a mixture of old and young tea trees. The two tea tastings we had along the way, sure added to the pleasure, but both Nikita and I knew there was no way we would find these trees on our own.

The day just kept getting better. I don't think there was anything we could have done. We were somehow both supposed to see the old trees today. The entire circumstances that we came together and even met were weird. I told Nikita that if I was by myself I don't know if I would have had the same results. I said maybe he would have found his way to the tea trees on his own, but I don't know if I would have.

On the way down, we saw a lot of the same people we saw on the way up and asked for directions. Did the smiles on our faces indicate what we saw today? Maybe. They recognized us and we said thank you in Chinese and tried to express our humblest gratitude.

We kept walking down. Eventually we made it to the bottom. Even the little vendors and food stalls were still there. We saw the first woman we had asked for directions and she pointed us to the bus stop on the other side of the road.

We had walked at least 6 hours today. I checked the time and it was 6:04. We would still have plenty of time to get back to town even if the bus came by in an hour. Nikita asked if I minded if he tried to hitchhike. I said no. He had success in China before. He said sometimes you have to pay a little money. I said no problem.

Within 7 minutes a guy driving a minivan stopped. Nikita didn't remember where we were going. I said Jinghong city. That's the direction the driver was going too. We hopped in. The drive was much quicker than in the morning when we had to make some stops on the bus. When we came to the toll booth, I tried to give the driver some money. He wouldn't take it. As we got closer to the city, I started recognizing things. He must have known where all the foreigners hang out in town. He dropped us at MeiMei's Cafe--the same spot we started this morning. We just sat down at a table there. We were both hungry and tired.

I told Nikita it was going to take a while for me to process what just happened today. It was one of the most perfect days. It was a gift. Our lives would be intertwined from here on out. Every time I told the story to my friends, I told Nikita I would remember him. He said likewise.

He doesn't drink, but I got a beer and some veggy dish with rice. He ordered veggie pizza and then got another dish because he was still hungry. A couple from Holland that he had met before came by. They sat at the table next to us. We were all chatting. Nikita said he was going to run down the street to get some cakes and he would be back. I was still drinking my beer with the other couple. They said when they were here 14 years ago, this place was very different. All the hotels still had squat toilets. They noticed so many changes in this town since then.

Nikita came back with his sweets and said goodbye. He said he was exhausted and needed to rest. I told him he was welcome to join me tomorrow. I was supposed to go to the Hani village and a tea plantation. I told him I would email him the directions to my hotel. We were leaving at 8:30.

I was exhausted and needed a shower, so I left shortly afterwards. I was tired but still very content and more than anything, touched.