geomantic

So what does tea have to do with placemaking in the 21st century? A lot, if you realize that tea is essentially a product of its environment right down to the local climate -including rainfall regime, altitude, total annual insolation, etc., as well as the soil type and underlying geology, the age of the tree, and cultural methods. I had my first drink of pu’er (???) in 1986 from a street vendor in Hong Kong. It was decidely earthy, moldy, and well…strange, due to processing, which involves aging (e.g. molding and fermenting) in caves for several years. And that first taste was what we might politely refer to as an ‘acquired taste’. Just like compost, or say, dirt is an acquired taste.

I’ve grown to love pu’er, especially when times are tough and I’m under a lot of stress. Over the last ten years or so, several tea merchants have made a small speciality of selling pu’er teas sourced from remote farms in the mountainous southwest province of Yunan in China. During that time, the world has discovered pu’er, fueling an economic boom among Yunan tea farmers. A sign of pu’er tea’s rise in popularity is found in today’s New York Times, where there is an interesting article about how pu’er tea is a serving as a viable economic alternative to smokestack-based industrialization. (The NYT scores extra points for the small map indicating the location of pu’er tea country in southwest Yunan province.)

What I know about pu’er…well, I’ve exhausted the subject in this post. But you can find out more than you ever wanted to know about pu’er (and other teas) at the Cha Dao blog where a small group of serious tea devotees write smart and incisive commentaries about tea.

There are several very specialized sources of pu’er, and other Yunan teas but one of my favorite sources is Silk Road Teas in Lagunitas, CA. (Make sure you check out their excellent selection of green teas, too.)