Ancient Tea Horse Road

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Ancient Tea Horse Road. Mile Zero. (Ninger, Yunnan province). After a trip around the globe we are here. The start of the tea horse road. This is the place where the horses were loaded with bamboo packs filled with rounds of Pu'er tea. If there weren't enough horses, and there never were, it was men who shouldered the long bamboo tongs of tea. The journey was long and hard and was sure to take the lives of both horses and men.

However, as romantic and dangerous as the road itself was, we are here to immerse ourselves in the origins of the tea itself and what it has meant to tea sippers for a thousand years. What better way to begin than by sipping tea ourselves. Three cups of tea? Pfff! Greg Mortenson had it easy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We have each drunk at least 30 cups of tea today and still have one more tea session to go with Kit serving as the tea master on a second floor courtyard under a yellow half moon in this town where it all started. Which of the thirty cups would you have chosen to share with us?

Maybe those served at the teashop that carried small bricks wrapped in brown paper with green letters made by Farmer En who lives up the Mekong River a few hours from here. Farmer En makes all of his tea cakes by hand. We are in awe that we have actually found tea that is not formed by machines in a factory. Farmer En cooks his tea leaves in the family wok which leaves a hint of salt in the final product. He presses them with heavy stone weights by hand. They ferment naturally which takes a minimum of ten years. The blocks we taste at this tea shop are eleven years old. We learn all this as we sip cup after cup talking to the owner of the shop. This owner has something in common with every tea shop owner we meet. They all ask us to sit at their tea table while they make us Pu'er tea and tell us every detail of how the tea was made. We learn new things about tea and discover new flavors everywhere we go.

We find a shop that actually carries the bamboo baskets worn by the horses packed full of tea. We meet a wonderful character in his native ethnic Hani dress who shows us pictures of how he packed horses and tea and made the 2,000 meter trip to Beijing with tea in 2005. We drink with him, laugh with him, buy bone tea picks and tiny cups from him. We do not ask him why he took the horses to Beijing instead of Tibet. We find a small room in a beautiful building where a young man is hand pressing round globes of tea encircled with indentations like those that mark the sections in an orange. He also has the traditional stone presses to hand press the characteristic Pu'er rounds of tea. This is extraordinary. We never thought we would actually see someone making the tea by hand. He invites us in to serve us tea even though the tea he makes is not for sale and is only available for the important party cadres.

After visits to many tea shops, we finally slosh our way to the town square looking for the fresh pineapple man who cut us a delicious bag of fruit last night. He has not yet set up shop,but the square is an amazing place that pulses with the pride of this small town that is home to Pu'er. We learn the incredible history of tea through sculpture in the park. There are sculptures representing every phase in the traditional making of tea as well as sculptures of every shape of Pu'er that we have encountered.

Although the town's official name is “Ninger”, in my mind this town will always be Pu'er. It always was Pu'er until the Chinese government took the name away and gave it the new name. Not being Chinese I do not have to accept the action of the Chinese government in taking away the name of this small town and giving it to a “more important” town 15 miles down the road. The tea maker who buys his tea from Farmer En sadly reports that a petition from the town to keep the name that proclaims their proud history was rejected by the government. I am happy to report that the same government could not take away the pride this town displays in its most famous connection with history – the home of Pu'er tea and the starting point of the ancient tea horse road.

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Photos

Bamboo baskets used to carry pu'er on
These were in the back of a tea shop that we just happened by

Comments

[Mother]

Tea House road
Karen, Jim , Kathy and Kit, I am traveling with you vicariously. Love 'n stuff to all four of you, Mother