A Tea Addict's Journal

Life and death of a tree

April 24, 2017 · 11 Comments

This is a picture from my friend L, who is visiting Yiwu again this year. He’s been going for some years now, the first visit of his from 2007. He said when he first went to Yiwu, this tree was supposed to be 600 years old. It was just growing in the wild, one of the older trees, but certainly nothing too special. A few years later, in 2012 when he visited this spot again, the tree was now 1400 years old, not 600. By then, it had been “protected” with this metal cage you see surrounding it, and also some concrete poured around it to help protect it from, presumably, falling off the slope or something. Fast forward a few more years to today – as you can see in the picture, the tree is either dead or about to die, with no leaves and no real sign of life. It’s not the first tree like this and won’t be the last. Nannuo mountain had a similar, much bigger (physically) tree that was also “protected” and died in the process.

But fear not – there’s already a newly crowned “1000 years old” tree at the front of the village with a sign hanging from the tree proclaiming so. Tourists who are entering the region need not worry – they will still be able to see 1000 years old tree and buy magical leaves from them!

Now, aside from the utter absurdity of the story and the sadness of it all, I think it’s safe to say that those of us who have watched the puerh market for a decade or more know this sort of thing has been going on for some time now. The ever-increasing age of certain trees is not surprising – it’s been that way since at least 2005, when people first started getting crazy about older trees. Prices for the leaves have never really fallen since then, and now ever-fancier things are happening, with single tree cakes being pressed, etc. Just look at this tree though – how much tea do you think it can realistically produce? It’s no taller than a person and half. Even if you chop down the entire tree and took down all the leaves when it was in full bloom, chances are it’s no more than a couple kilos when fried and dried.

That brings us to a more salient point – this area of China has never, ever been rich. For pretty much its entire history, human beings living in these mountains have lived a subsistence lifestyle – they produce enough to sustain their life, but not much more. When tea traders first visited these areas in the early 2000s, conditions were primitive. Huts were shabby, sanitation basic, food, while they exist, were not exactly free flowing. In earlier decades many farmers actually chopped down their tea trees to plant rubber, because rubber trees offered a more steady income. Old tree tea was cheaper – they were considered less good back then, and more troublesome to harvest. Prices only really reversed starting somewhere in 2003, and hasn’t looked back since.

So in the face of this sudden rush of fortune, it is not a surprise that farmers in this area would want to exploit it to the full. This is, after all, their one chance of getting comfortable, even rich if you were one of those lucky ones to live in a famous village like Banzhang. You can finally make some decent money, send your kids to school comfortably, buy some creature comfort, build a new, better house, get a motorcycle or even a pickup truck. You can have some money in the bank, and enjoy life a little more. If the cost of all that is, say, the over-harvesting of some trees in the slopes above your house…. that’s ok, no? These trees finally will pull them out of poverty, and with an endless supply of newcomers who don’t know that much about tea, business is good.

In the last few years as tea-tourism has increased exponentially (I read one account that said this year 500,000 people are visiting the tea mountains during harvest season) there is an increasing number of people who really have no business going to the mountains in there, buying tea. If you are a rich, city professional interested in tea, and are spending a couple weeks in Yiwu looking at things, well, you would want some of your own tea, no? Here, here’s some tea from my 800 years old tea tree. That bag there? It’s the 600 years old one. If you are visiting only that one time – you’ll want to get your hands on some of these things. What’s a few thousand RMB for half a kilo of tea? It’s the memory that counts, and you can press it into a cake or a couple cakes and store it forever, knowing that you personally went up to the mountain to press these unique, old, single-tree cakes.

At that point, does it actually matter what trees these leaves are from? These guys are just buying tour souvenirs. It can be trash tea and it won’t matter. And a lot of it is indeed trash tea sold to people who really don’t know what they’re doing when buying maocha. When you compare a few bags of tea, one of them will always be better than the others. That doesn’t mean the bag is good, unless you really know what you’re doing. Most people have never really tried really fresh maocha enough to know the difference.

Eager customers from faraway places who don’t get to go to Yunnan easily are also lured in by the same promise. Like this tree that magically went from 600 years to 1400 years old – outlandish claims exist, even among vendors whose primary customer are in Western countries – and people buy them hoping that they, too, can experience these amazing teas. Let it sink in for a moment how old those trees are really, and think about how likely it is that these claims have any semblance of truth. Meanwhile, spare a thought for this tree that perished in the process.

Categories: Teas
Tagged: , ,

11 responses so far ↓

  • tastefortea // April 24, 2017 at 7:47 am | Reply

    Nice article, well written.

  • TheOolongDrunk // April 24, 2017 at 11:19 pm | Reply

    This was a fantastic article. It made me kind of sad actually! Thank you for showing another perspective.

  • JC // April 25, 2017 at 12:59 pm | Reply

    Great Article. Very sad reality, but it is a great reminder that this happens.

  • Pacinosia // April 27, 2017 at 6:55 am | Reply

    We’ve come to a point in society where killing an old tree is actually a very sad event. I do understand that these people are trying to get rich-quick but what I would give to show them a few months in one of the world’s larger cities e.g. Tokyo, and see how bad the air is.
    You can’t get something that old back.

  • zlc // April 28, 2017 at 12:16 am | Reply

    The fact that deaths of “old trees” have been reported repeatedly in some Chinese media & forums in recent years may have to do with the recent phenomenon of old tree worship and tea tourism. As you have pointed out, this kind of worship is a recent invention. Hopefully, it will not become an invented tradition.

    If I recall correctly, old trees only survive because some owners are too lazy to cut them down and replant saplings or plant rubber trees. Leaves from old trees are not traditionally valued for their quality or quantity. Many old plantations have been abandoned; those trees are mostly less than one hundred years old.

    What is sad is that many city dwellers with delusions or fantasies about tea planted in them by tea-sellers/tea-masters or some media become obsessed with tea tourism.

    • zlc // April 28, 2017 at 12:36 am | Reply

      BTW, thanks for the article/report. It is great that some historians/scholars value truth and objectivity. We all benefit from that.

    • Philip Lee // October 20, 2017 at 8:22 am | Reply

      You are correct in saying that old trees are not valued for their quantity but they are very much valued for their quality. That’s the reason the tea tourism started the whole 1000 year old tree trend in the first place. Old tree ‘worship’, depending on your definition, has always been a local thing – it only gets out of hand with greedy or uneducated people trying to hop on the bandwagon for their own personal gain rather than respecting nature and the support it provides.

      Common agricultural practices of keeping only younger trees are actually worse for the land as they encouraged to over-produce. Abandoning the plantation is a way of saving the land as weak trees die, strong trees survive and bio-diversity returns to regenerate the plantation. This is considered a type of permaculture that works to provide sustainable, high-quality tea to the market. I fully respect farmers that are able to go this route but it normally takes generations with lots of good land, good trees and good management.

      Also, as major brand tea companies no longer have a monopoly on tea trade and as a result farmers, investors, tourists, etc. are trying to get in on the business side. It brings much more wealth to the locals which in turn brings further changes to the landscape for better and worse, depending on which perspective you choose to see through.

      To summarize, old trees that live for many centuries (whether 600 or 1600) are truly exceptional and are sad to lose. To me, the story is more about whether people can work with or against nature is the question really being presented and that we should be more mindful of our negative impact – after all, great tea is a product of man and nature’s effective collaboration.

  • JohnW // April 28, 2017 at 8:55 pm | Reply

    Was your friend told what the scientific cause of death is? The tree shows large cankers which can be anything from dieback fungus to ant damage. If the area cannot be sprayed for pests, a death from such causes is certainly likely at the very least, surely just as much as people taking pictures. The cement may have been an attempt to stop ants or erosion. I find it hard to hastily conclude people are doing ignorant things without more evidence.

  • Hammockman // May 13, 2017 at 1:36 pm | Reply

    Reminds me of olive trees. One generation plants them for the benefit of the next generation.

  • gerard // May 13, 2017 at 9:30 pm | Reply

    Metal controls Wood (Taoist science –> 5 Elements Theory –> Controlling phase). Humans should leave trees alone as they are found in the wild. When interfering with Nature, events like that happen, unfortunately.

  • Philip Lee // October 20, 2017 at 8:44 am | Reply

    The locals deal with the tourists quite well – the best plantations are too far into the wilderness that most tourists couldn’t be bothered to trek that far. How many are ready to be walking for several hours there and then back just for a quick peek at a tree when there are especially chose trees near the road.

    The best teas are kept for the true tea lovers, and yes, they do cost thousands due to the market changes over recent fifteen to twenty years. I am very lucky to be related to a local tea sourcing expert meaning that I get to share the samples of the best teas. If only I had the customer base to bring these to the western market…

Leave a Comment