Lincang

Lincang has long been underrated on the pu'er map, yet it holds one of Yunnan's three great pu'er regions, and names like Bingdao, Bangdong and Mengku now sit at the very top of the price range. Arrive in Bingdao village in Mengku and you find that "Bingdao" is barely five hundred old trees, its output so small that it is counted tree by tree.

What makes Lincang interesting is precisely everything outside Bingdao: Wa villages still press "iron cakes" with the old stone moulds, and the first batch of Dianhong congou made at the Fengqing tea factory in 1939 carried Yunnan's large-leaf varietal out into the world. What we show you is the part of Lincang that has not yet been priced — tea trees growing out of cracks in the rock at Bangdong, a farmer's own household tea drunk in a Wa village, the honeyed scent of Dianhong in Fengqing. When you go back to the city and see those names bid up into the sky, you will have a judgement of your own to bring to them.

There is no direct flight to the tea hills; most people fly from Kunming to Lincang and hire a car, or come overland from Pu'er along the Lancang River. The best season is the spring picking from March to April, when every village in the hills is working. Wa villages mostly sit above 1,500 metres with sharp day-night temperature swings, so do not forget a jacket. Bingdao village now limits visitor numbers, so it is worth confirming before you set out.