Travelling with tea – part 2
(também publicado no Substack ) You may read part 1 here . China: About ten years ago, I started providing trade consultancy to some Chinese companies. For a couple of years, I had to travel frequently to China – and that’s when I got to know the southern part of the country. From the high Himalayan mountains of Yunnan 云南 to the softer Pacific hills of Zhejiang 浙江 , I have been to the main tea plantation areas of China. What a shock, so many novelties! The teas I tasted there were completely new to me – nothing like the kind we might find in the tea shops of Lisbon. How is it possible to extract so many different flavours and aromas from the same Camellia sinensis leaves without adding new elements to them? And why were those teas not available in my country before? Myself in a tea plantation nearby Eshan, in Yunnan. Before I proceed, I must say I am not a China scholar. One does not become an expert on a place after spending on...