Yunnan – home of the tea tree, not the plantation
Yunnan in south-western China is considered the original home of the tea plant. In the mountains along the borders with Laos and Myanmar, tea still grows in many places the way it did generations ago: as trees among forest trees, bamboo and ferns rather than in trimmed rows on a hillside. The gardens are tended by families, each with only a small plot of land, and every leaf is picked by hand. For Pu-erh, Yunnan is what Burgundy is for wine: every mountain has its own signature.
