Puer Tea

by Zhang, Jinghong. ,Project Muse.

  Xiao Hu was not at the family house when we arrived, but his father and brother brought out three big bags of maocha. Wen checked the bags one by one, carefully examining, smelling, and touching the leaves. At one point, Wen frowned, because he discovered some terrace tea mixed in to one of the bags. Xiao Hu's father did not deny this but said that only a little terrace tea had gotten in and that it was of good quality. He said that it had been mixed in by accident by his wife. Wen tried to restrain his feelings, repeating the requests that he had made on his earlier visit. Later, however, when the family demanded a new price of ¥460 per kilogram, rather than the agreed-upon ¥430, he lost his temper.

  Xiao Hu's father explained that this new price was now being charged by many families in Gaoshan, but Wen exclaimed and shook his head. The previous oral agreement had been broken and it seemed that the trade would be terminated. Xiao Hu's father refused to lower his price. As I understood later, if Wen did not buy at this moment, the family could easily sell the maocha to another trader. The future price of Gaoshan's maocha was even harder to predict. And rejecting the price would mean breaking the trade relationship with Xiao Hu's family.

  Xiao Hu's father made a small concession, saying that he would sell the bag mixed with terrace tea at the old price of ¥430 per kilogram, but he insisted on selling the other two bags at the higher price. Wen thought for a while, writing something in his notebook. Finally he accepted. The maocha was weighed, and the price was calculated. Wen and his assistant carried the three bags of tea to Wen's car, and Wen left without further conversation with Xiao Hu's family.

  On the way back to Yiwu, Wen told me that something similar had happened to him in the Ding village inhabited by Yao, where he had donated many study items to the local primary school. The Yao people, Wen admitted, had been impoverished for a long time, but their situation was improving as a result of the Puer tea trade. He thought he had treated them fairly and did not understand how they could be so greedy. As for Xiao Hu's family, Wen had deposited some money with them many days ago as a promise that he would buy their maocha. What could he do? The process of dealing with these people, he said, was “a battle of wits and bravery.”

  Although the price of tea had grown incredibly high and the competition intense, Wen had hoped to succeed based on his own ability. However complicated the jianghu of Puer tea in Yiwu, Wen, like the Chinese knight-errant, believed that he could solve problems using his personal skill. But however hard he tried, sourcing 100 percent authentic maocha was an elusive ideal. As Puer tea's popularity skyrocketed, it became harder for Wen and other traders to obtain perfect tea material. Business relationships became unstable, and it was not easy to fix them once they were broken. Finding authentic Yiwu Puer tea went beyond the skill of tea differentiation and became a struggle over human relationships.

  STRUGGLING FOR THE AUTHENTIC YIWU

  Visitors were eager not only to collect “authentic” Yiwu Puer tea but also to see the “authentic” Yiwu. In 2005 Yiwu was declared a “Special Tourism Village” of Yunnan, as part of a program to bring more tourists to small places with specific cultural attractions. However, the unpackaged experiences often failed to live up to the packaged versions. The contrast between propaganda and experience, between imagination and reality, between the perfect past and the uneven present led to great disappointment and even anger for visitors.

  One such tourist, a nostalgic woman from Guangzhou, had imagined before her journey that she would be able to sit on the flagstones of the Tea-Horse Road in Yiwu, fantasizing about caravans ringing their bells. But in reality, those flagstones had been mostly destroyed, and in their place she found construction and dust. Many old houses had been destroyed, too. It seemed to this woman that most of the historic and valuable things in Yiwu had not been preserved well at all. I discussed this with her at the newly built tea museum in Yiwu, which collected and displayed old-style implements relevant to tea processing and transport. To this woman, who had hoped to see these relics in their original places, the exhibition made them seem dead. As Marilyn Ivy writes, “The loss of the nostalgia—that is, the loss of the desire to long for what is lost because one has found the lost object—can be more unwelcome than the original loss itself” (Ivy 1995: 10).

  These complaints were echoed by another trader, Sin, from Kunming, who had been to Yiwu several times in the previous three years. He thought that the image of Yiwu was deteriorating and was distressed that more modern architecture and new construction had emerged in the old area. In his opinion, the new architecture had destroyed the “harmony” of the old street and conflicted with the traditional roofs. He took a series of photos, which he called “inharmonious” (bu hexie) pictures of Yiwu. According to Sin and others, the inharmonious scenes were largely the result of the QS standard and the lack of a unitary development plan for Yiwu as a whole.6

  In May 2007, a television crew from Guangdong came to Yiwu to make a documentary about Puer tea and its original place. Upon seeing the sad state of the old street, their enthusiasm was dampened, but they had to continue the program as planned, including shooting a scene about processing caked Puer tea under a traditional roof. Unfortunately, on the day of the shooting they were unable to find a family on the old street that was processing tea. Most families in the area who used to make tea in their houses had moved to one of the new tea factories, which did not fit with the requirements of the film crew. Those families who continued to process tea at home, such as Mr. He and his neighbor Mr. Li, weren't processing that day. Finally Mr. Li kindly promised to arrange a special processing if the crew really needed it. This was the crew's only choice, but even it was unsatisfactory because modern elements had been added to the house. The filming caused a small panic for both the film crew and those locals who were present, who suddenly realized that the “tradition” of Yiwu had been seriously damaged.

  Not only was the dream of a nostalgic tour destroyed, but the quality of the tea products themselves came into doubt. Many visitors began to complain when they found improper or inconsistent methods of rough processing that didn't follow the “authentic” descriptions given in guidebooks or recounted to them by tea experts. This led to further hostility toward the issue of QS. As one traveler from Beijing commented, “It is ironic that the government took great effort to ensure the cleanliness of fine processing but they don't care about rough processing. I think rough processing is more important and the quality of maocha is the key node for the production of Puer tea as a whole.”

  As the price of tea ascended during the spring of 2007, visitors were informed that some significant changes were happening in the tea fields of Yiwu: pesticides were being applied, especially on the closely planted terrace tea; fertilizers were increasingly being used to speed growth; some farmers overworked the tea plants, despite the common belief that picking tea leaves too often would result in an insipid taste; and large areas of forest were being cut down or burned in order to establish more tea plantations. All these problems of ecological destruction were attributed to the unsustainably fast growth of the Puer tea business.

  What bothered ordinary travelers, like tea traders, more than anything else was the crisis in trust between people. They had not been given suggestions in any guidebooks on how to manage this.

  Wang, an enthusiast for Puer tea, along with two of his friends, came to Yiwu from Henan, in central China. They declared their trip a pilgrimage (chaosheng); in Wang's words, they had come to find out the truth about tea in the hometown of tribute Puer. I first met them at a family house where Puer tea was served. The next day, when I met them at a restaurant, they told me that they had been suspicious about the quality of the tea served the day before by the local family. Knowing that I was doing research in Yiwu, Wang said he felt it was necessary to tell me what he had learned in Yiwu. He said he was disappointed by the place, and especially by the people:

  Even at the origin of the tea plants, the hometown of tribute Puer tea, I still could not find ou
t the truth about it. Although the trip gave me opportunities to taste some comparatively pure Yiwu tea, I still could not tell what on earth good Puer tea was. The criteria is in chaos even in the tea field; it is no better than the situation in the urban market. Most locals are hospitable and honest, as long as you don't mention the tea business. But because of the increasing value of Puer tea, the local tradition has been lost. Everyone in Yiwu is after a profit, and little clean earth remains.

  I had been delegated by several friends to buy some excellent Yiwu Puer tea and take it back with me to Henan. However, I now realize that I have been cheated while traveling around Yiwu these past few days. Different grades of maocha are secretly being blended. How could I tell my friends that I could not find authentic Puer tea in Yiwu? Henanese used to drink more Maojian [a sort of green tea mostly composed of tea buds]. It is complicated to identify, too, but if you go to its hometown, you can discover a clear and clean version. I wonder why the same standards for Puer tea do not exist in its hometown.

  Like Wang, many travelers grew suspicious of the quality of Puer tea that they had bought in Yiwu. Similar to what they had experienced in urban markets, 90 percent of Puer tea products bought in Yiwu and marked as “authentic forest tea of Yiwu” were later found to be terrace tea leaves from the same region or, even worse, blended terrace tea leaves from somewhere far away. Worst of all, bad leaves that had been poorly processed, resulting in an unpleasant taste, were still declared “authentic.” Wang asked, “What sense would it make for me to buy piles of bad-quality raw Puer tea, store it, and wait for its aged value? It would waste both my money and my time.”

  CONCLUSION: AUTHENTICITY ANXIETY, COMMERCIALIZATION, AND CHINESE INDIVIDUALISM

  As the Puer tea trade blossomed, the authentic status of Yiwu became blemished and inauthentic.7

  In the West, the rise of modern techniques during the nineteenth-century industrial revolution, which generated mass printing, photography, and film, transcended the singular form of things and gave rise to worries about forgery (Benjamin [1936] 1999). The concern with authenticity was also seen by Western scholars as being tied to a rising modernity, the Western notion of individualism, and the emergence of private property (Trilling 1974; Handler 1986).

  These views, however, apply only partially to the Chinese case, in which concern about authenticity is not necessarily linked to modernity, but is more specifically a result of increased commercialization that can be traced back centuries (Notar 2006a). Forgery was a serious concern in the thirteenth century (Song dynasty) and the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century (Ming dynasty), when counterfeits emerged in the flourishing markets and connoisseurs competed to collect antiques (Jones, Craddock, and Barker 1990; Clunas 1991; Brook 1998).8 In the case of Puer tea, counterfeiting of the authentic had appeared in the mid-eighteenth (Zhang Hong 1998: 369) and early twentieth centuries (Colquhoun 1900: 388), which is why the producers of Yiwu stressed authenticity with special icons in their Tongqing and Songpin product descriptions. Echoing the previous periods, the recent efflorescence of the Puer tea trade has aroused anxiety about authenticity, but this is not because of mechanical reproduction, which affects only the speed of producing forgeries and relates to the preference of some consumers for handcrafted rather than mechanical products. Of greater concern is that raw Puer tea is not being made according to the new authenticity standards, nor consistent with the original aura—though many teas are also handcrafted—and hence may not be able to transform into valuable aged tea in the future.

  Exhausted by Puer tea counterfeits in the cities, urban people journeyed to Yiwu, which, they imagined, would provide authenticity, original aura, and frank and transparent interpersonal relationships. However, all these imaginings about originality are contested: by the modern production regulations that contrast with tradition; by the unexpected rise in tea price and fierce competition; and, finally, by the difficulties involved in negotiating complex social relations. All these factors have seriously affected the implementation of emerging connoisseurship standards involved in finding authentic Yiwu Puer tea, and all of them reflect rising commercialization.

  These concerns about authenticity can also be seen as an aspect of Chinese-style individualism.9 Though not a dominant theme in China's history, individualism does exist and is quite evident in certain contexts,10 as in the case of jianghu actors, whether in reality or in martial arts fiction. At the very least, these jianghu actors stand for the desire of many common Chinese to act bravely in trying situations and to find their own solutions with their own special skills. If the factors affecting the “original aura” of Puer tea production are read as the social distinctions and counterforces among jianghu individuals, such anxiety over authenticity appears to be rooted in conflicting desires activated in the Reform era and by rising commoditization. The desire to achieve an authentic identity and authentic lifestyle motivates the search for authentic Puer tea, while the desire to obtain wealth via tea trading and investment can lead to illegal counterfeiting and cheating. When these two kinds of desire meet, the jianghu of Puer tea becomes full of risk and suspicion, and the anxiety about finding authentic Puer tea goes beyond technical factors and is transformed into anxiety about the struggles of human negotiation.

  Moreover, the lack of formal regulation to define authenticity and stop counterfeiting creates a vacant arena that multiple jianghu voices can fill, and the connoisseurship standard becomes one prominent voice arising from the popular realm. Meanwhile, however, formal regulations like the QS, although unable to solve problems efficiently, try to unify all voices and use authoritative power to enforce standards. This attempt, though not directly resisted, is deeply contested by the other actors, whether local producers who feel that an added burden is placed on them, or tourists who see QS as a modern destroyer of the original aura, or connoisseur traders whose “taste” standards diverge from those of the state. These actors’ complaints, worries, and self-managed solutions (including forgery) embody multiple counterforces. As the tea economy bloomed in the mountains of Yiwu, these contested desires, multiple voices, and counterforces in turn influenced market stability, counterfeiting, and disputes over authenticity.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Yunnan: The Home of Puer Tea”

  Government has been the most powerful driving force in stoking the craze for Puer tea…. Government promotion of Puer tea is the most successful packaging of Chinese tea in recent years, which lies in the fact that Puer tea's history and culture have broader spaces for imagination compared with other kinds of tea.

  —Tang Jianguang, Huan Li, and Wang Xun 2007b: 30

  Both Yiwu locals and outsiders talked frequently in March 2007 about an upcoming event that was later regarded as a key factor in the increased price of Puer tea in Yunnan that year. Another tea area to the north of Xishuangbanna called Simao, a subdistrict of Yunnan, was going to change its name to “Puer” in April.1 “Puer” would become a confusing term, because it would mean three different things: the tea itself; the renamed subdistrict as well as its capital city, both of which had been called “Simao” in the past; and the town in Simao that had been called “Puer” but now had to yield to the new “Puer” and rename itself “Ninger” (map 3.1). (To avoid ambiguity in this book, the old terms are used unless specifically noted.)

  Puer tea had long been associated with a specific place, the third in the above list. The old town of Puer had been a famous center of goods distribution and taxation in southern Yunnan since at least the early seventeenth century, when it was under the authority of the Dai state of Jinghong (Fang Guoyu 2001: 427–428; Xie Zhaozhi 2005: 3; Ma Jianxiong 2007: 563). The generic name “Puer tea” came from this town. In 1729 the Qing (1644–1912) established Puer Prefecture, whose administration included today's Simao subdistrict and eastern Xishuangbanna. The capital city of the prefecture was Puer. The General Tea Bureau (Zong Cha Dian) was established in Simao to handle matters such as taxation and tribute. The basic
tea material produced in the Six Great Tea Mountains (in today's Xishuangbanna and then part of Puer Prefecture) was taken for fine processing to Puer or Simao before being sent to Beijing as tribute.

  With the change of regime from the Qing to the Republic of China (1912–1949), and later to the People's Republic of China (1949–present), there have been many administrative developments in this region, which make the present boundaries of Simao (subdistrict) and Xishuangbanna quite different from those of the past. For a long time, the capital of the Simao subdistrict had been Puer, but in 1955 it was moved to Simao. In 1993 Simao (subdistrict) was upgraded from a county to a city in Yunnan. In January 2007 it was approved by the State Council of China to be renamed Puer City.2

  The day before its name change, I arrived in Simao. The streets had been cleaned up, billboards were hung, and neon lights were turned on in honor of the coming events. The tea shops were all selling Puer tea, and local bakeries were hawking freshly made tea snacks. Small gardens in public squares used sculptures to demonstrate the tea-serving ceremony. Recognizing me as a nonlocal, the owner of the restaurant where I ate recommended that I visit the 10,000-mu tea gardens, a famous tourist site in Simao (fig. 3.1). The importance of tea to the city was on full display. In the local government's development plan, tea was considered the most important pillar of industry, followed by forestry, mining, and hydropower (Shen Peiping 2007).

  On April 8, a large ceremony was held in Simao celebrating its name change. Ethnic performances showed the long history of the utilization by indigenous ethnic groups, such as the Bulang, Hani, and Dai, of Simao's tea resources. A series of other activities followed in the next few days. Conferences with government officials, tea experts, and celebrities were held. Puer tea games, auctions, trade fairs, and serving ceremonies were conducted (fig. 3.2). In all these activities, the central goal was to welcome the Golden Melon Tribute Puer tea “back home.”3 This particular piece of tea was supposedly 150 years old. Weighing 2.5 kilograms, it had long been kept in the Palace Museum of Beijing as a relic of the tribute to the Qing royal family. It was unveiled at the name-change ceremony and then publicly exhibited for the next few days before being taken back to Beijing. Thousands of people went to the exhibition, curious and excited to see this royal relic originating from Yunnan. Meanwhile, in the tea trade fair, a limited supply of 999 imitation pieces, of the same shape and weight, were sold for ¥9999 each (fig. 3.3).