Dear tea community, it's been a long
time I haven't posted new articles on this blog.
I started Bannablog in Summer 2010,
shortly after I bought my first camera. At the time, I was 19 and had
just moved in Xishuangbanna, in the South of Yunnan, China. After
high school, I decided to spend a year in China to fulfill my
passion : tea. I spent six months in Kunming to learn the basics
of Chinese and make my first contacts in the tea world. The purpose
of my stay in Xishuangbanna was to explore the famous tea mountains
and learn about Pu-erh tea growing and processing. I also wanted to
understand how the tea farmers live in rural China.
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| Man Nuo, in the North of Menghai. My first tea trip with a camera. |
Back in 2010, Xishuangbanna was very
different from now, it was quite a remote region. I made friends with
farmers I have seen change over time. Some of them were poor at the
time, and they have now become very wealthy thanks to the tea
business. Some had big projects, but life hasn't granted them success
yet. Many people I used to hang out with now have children. Besides
tea, I feel I have learned a lot about life during my stay there.
The blog was very active at this time,
I used to post once a week, between two tea trips. I had plenty of
time and only tea on my mind. Each visit to a tea mountain felt like
a whole adventure and I keep many good memories from that time.
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| Hunting birds in the jungle near Gua Feng Zhai in Yiwu mountain |
After six months in Xishuangbanna, my
next stop on the tea road was India. New culture, new approach to
tea. As I moved to this country, I stopped blogging, I had other
things in mind and I wanted my blog to stay focused on Chinese Pu-erh
tea anyway. I visited Darjeeling, but I was out of luck : the
factories were on strike because of separatists movements. I
collected many pictures and information but didn't process them well
enough to write about them. However, this visit broadened my vision
of tea, I found another system in India. The tea industry in
Darjeeling is managed by corporations, while most of the tea in
Yunnan is made by smallholders. This difference has important social
impacts
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| Darjeeling, on the foothills of Himalaya |
Eventually, I went to university. I
think taking a break after high school is very beneficial, even
though it is very uncommon in France. Still, education is very
important in order to get a better understanding of the world and
have tools for the mind. Tea is closely linked to Nature, this is
why I decided study biology and ecology for my bachelor's degree. I
learned a lot of interesting facts about Nature, i love to talk about
the diversity of life forms on earth and how they impact each other,
I have a preference for insects because they look so cool and funky !
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| The tea shield bug, one of my favorites! |
But tea isn't only about plants, it's
actually a link between men and Nature, this is why I didn't graduate
from university, instead, I joined an agricultural college in order
to learn more about men in addition to Nature. The very outdated
French system requires you to prepare for a highly competitive exam
similar to the Chinese Gaokao after which your are able to select
from the best colleges in France. The work environment is much better
than in regular universities because of the smaller number of
students in class and I feel this teaching is really helpful for my
understanding of tea. We learn how to deal with the complex issues
faced by the farmers in impoverished areas. Understanding agriculture
requires knowledge in a large variety of subjects : hard and
soft science, from physics and chemistry to business and sociology. I
love that !
Bannablog hasn't been very active since
I have entered agricultural college because the class and student
life kept me very busy. Every day, I learn a lot about things related
to tea, be it about how plants pump their nutrients or how
smallholders adapt to food price fluctuations in Kenya. You can
always relate some of that information to the world of tea. I am so
grateful to life to be able to learn so many new things !
Currently, I am an exchange student at
National Taiwan University in Taipei. It's a great opportunity to
learn about agriculture from very interesting professors, open a new
window on the world of tea and improve my chinese furthermore.
There is also another thing i haven't
mentioned :I have found my love in the name of Yubai (玉摆),
a pretty tea girl from Jingmai mountain. We met while I was living in
Xishuangbanna, and I have gone back as often as possible to China
since then to meet her. We like to travel in the best tea places of
Asia. We like to walk in Jingmai ancient tea gardens together,
looking for interesting things on the tea trees or in the soil,
picking fruits and meeting friends. We like to investigate tea
together, improve the farming and processing techniques in her tea
farm, conduct and monitor experiments... After I graduate, Yubai and
I want to live together, we have bigger projects with tea that I will
detail later on.
You are more and more buying tea on
www.bannacha.com, I am happy
to see that many people like our tea selection. Bannacha is only the
first step towards more ambitious goals. Our aim is to bring the
consumers closer to the tea producers. I feel our society lives in a
more and more virtual environment, made of electronic stimuli and
concrete blocks. Our busy life lets us few time to remember how
connected to the soil our existence is. I believe that this
connection can be re-established through a cup of tea. Tea can have
such a diversity of tastes thanks to the natural processes that occur
during its growth, processing and storage. We want to give you the
opportunity to make that connection, and for that, we sell tea
leaves. We also want you to have access to information about these
leaves, we hope you will then feel closer to the tea gardens, more
connected to Nature.
This blog is not an advertising
platform for my online tea shop. The main goal of bannablog is to
share my ideas with you, dear readers. In the following weeks, I will
write articles about tea with a focus on agriculture and nature. You
are welcome to leave comments or to send me emails, I am always happy
to discuss tea with fellow drinkers.
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| Thank you! |
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