sevencups's posterous

Tea In The Botanical Garden

I am in our new teahouse in the Tucson Botanical Gardens and enjoying a cup of. Meizhan oolong, one of my favorite WuYi Shan rock oolongs. I am reminded of the tea drinking scholars of the Tang Dynasty that preferred to drink their tea in a natural setting. The garden is beautiful. When to Tucson in 1987 I fell in love with the lushness of the Sonoran Desert. A few years later I was exposed to good Chinese green tea through my friendship with a Chinese graduate student who came from an area rich in tea and tea culture. My life was set on an unexpected course as a result. I never returned to live in the city that I had loved so much and the North Beach espresso that I couldn't get enough of. It is perhaps unusual to associate tea and the desert, but as I sit here this morning it seems perfectly right. The Chinese settled in Tucson more than 150 years ago. They are not thought of having been so, at least in most peoples minds, but they have always been a part of the settling of the West, and of course they brought tea. There was a very vibrant Chinatown here until it got wiped out along with a good chunk of the old barrio. A lot of the residents were bilingual in Chinese and Spanish. Selling tea in the desert is a sweet pleasure. Austin Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

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Seven Cups Puer Cakes

 We are proud to announce that we have produced two puer cakes, one sheng (green or raw puer) cake, and one shu (black or cooked puer) cake. Although these cakes were many years in the making, which included a lot of study, traveling, and tasting, they were finished in winter of 2008 and we have received them a few weeks ago. Only 25% of the production run made it to America, the rest are on sale to collectors through Cha Ma Shi inside of China. Cha Ma Shi is the leading family owned puer producer in Yunnan. There were 1000 cakes made of each type. We are happy to be the first American company to produce special order puer cakes. We have also sold other high end teas with the Seven Cups brand  in both Chongqing and Guangzhou in 2009. We think that is pretty good for a tiny tea company from Tucson, Arizona.  It is hard to sell high end Chinese tea here in the desert, but it is even harder to sell it back to the Chinese in competition with some great Chinese companies.  We strive to be tough competitors in sourcing the best Chinese teas. We certainly could never do it without the support of the Chinese tea community and in Yunnan with out the help of Cha Ma Shi, who put education and quality foremost in their business values. We are proud to be their students. I hope you will enjoy these cakes and that you will add them to your collection.

Austin

I want to remind you that our Mid-Autumn sale is still going on and it includes these cakes.

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Tim's Puer Tea Tour Site

Tim Bowen has created a great site to share his photo’s from our 2009 Puer Tea Tour. He has also written a day by day account. I’m sure that you will enjoy his photographs. It was his photographic eye that first attracted us to his as a web designer. That and he had an office that was not in his house. Check it out.
Austin


Puer Tour Day Ten Afternoon

After a great lunch we left to continue our journey to the ancient city of Dali. When I had visited this area 4 years ago there was not the road then that is there now, so our travel time was cut in half. Here are some views along the way. You can easily see the fortress like positions chosen by villages on the top of these mountain ridges. The bridge looks old but was recently built. It is spanning the Lancang River (Mekong). It was about half a mile for us to walk across. I did have some envy after the walk for the boys playing in the water. It was a pretty a hot day.

Austin

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Puer Tour Day Ten Morning

This was a special day for me because we were allowed to see an old Dian Hong factory and were allowed to examine the complete process. I will write a separate entry to discuss the process in detail after I settle back into being home. Notice the tractor trucks. They are a common site in the Chinese countryside. They haul everything imaginable, in this case rock to fix the muddy road we were on.  Notice the mud. At the factory Mr. Peng Chundao gave us a complete overview of the organic growing process and the difficulty of obtaining an IMO certification for the tea he produces for Dian Hong. The photo of the factory floor is on the second story and it is completely thatched bamboo. The air from below withers the tea through the thatch. There is also a shot of a basket of tea that is oxidizing and become black tea. The smell was exquisite.

Austin

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Puer Tour Day Nine

We left Lincang for Fengqing country. Fengqing is the origin of Yunnan black tea, and the old government factory of Dian Hong. The last time I had visited it had still been run by the government, 4 years ago, but now had become a private company.

We had a beautiful drive in the morning, all the roads being paved, less muddy for the guy herding his animals, and arrived in Fengqing about lunch time. We took a little rest and visited the old Dian Hong factory  in the afternoon. The Dian Hong company also has a research center with two hundred varietals of tea bushes. I would have liked to have been able to spend some more time collecting leaf samples to press. It was a real thrill to see their collection.

The company treated us to dinner, and we walked around town in the evening. Christine danced with the local ladies getting their exercise, and we found the farmers market, deserted for the evening. The hotel was rocking with karaoke last into the night, but we all got a good rest, well mostly.

Austin

 

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Puer Tour Day Eight

I am back in the US and still trying to get caught up with my posts. On the eighth da we spent the day in Lincang. Master Hu gave us a class in distinguishing quality in a puer cake. As a consequence we had some very good tea in the morning. In the afternoon we when to a park dedicated to the Yunnan ethnic minorities and there tea traditions. About 50 ancient tea trees had been transplanted to the park. In the park we climbed a hill that had a graveyard that was surrounded by tea. The park was almost deserted except for us. It had been built for tourists that have never come to Lincang. Never the less it was very beautiful if not populated, and the park officials arranged for two charming girls to do a local tea ceremony for us. We finished the day with a great dinner and a walk around the streets.

Austin

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Puer tour- Leaving Kunming

The solar eclipse has blocked out half of the sun, and we are stuck in traffic, the normal morning traffic plus the people going blind from staring at the sun through tinted windows. I will finish off the day by day commentary when I get back. The hardest part is sorting through and deciding which to post. I need an editor that can make hard decisions. I have a lot more to write about besides we when here and did that. I've learned a lot about the current state of the Chinese tea market. We have also had a very interesting experience that deserves some commentary. I appreciate everyone that has been following our trip. I also want to thanks everyone on Facebook that wished me a happy birthday. I'll contact everyone when I get back and have access to Facebook again. The eclipse is very clear through the clouds and it seems for right now people have become a little bit bored watching the slow progress of the moon and are going about their busy day. We are still stuck in traffic hoping to catch our planes. Update: Xiao Zhu has missed his plane. It has taken us an hour and a half to make it three kilometers. We are pressing on like a slow murky river. Could it be that I am sleepy because of carbon monoxide poisoning?

 Update: On the plane at the last minute
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