The alleged BIRTHPLACE of TEA! They have been tea farmers for over 1000 YEARS! EP28, S2

Good morning. Go home? I'm going to walk around first. I'll go to your house later. Okay. You can come to my house later. Okay. So in this village, almost every family, indeed, every family makes tea at everyone's house. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to my channel, Season 2 of In China. Today, I am going to visit one of China's oldest tea production region, Jinmaishan. And I'm also going to learn a new ethnic minority, Hulang people. They are the ones who make teas. Recent days, it also happens to be the Shankangjie, the new year for Hulang people. So there will be a lot of festival events on the mountains. And today, I was also quite lucky. I got a number from the driver. And then I got a number of one family who make teas in Mangjingshen. So I plan to stay at her house. So she's able to give me a lift. So right now, I'm now waiting in Huimingzhen in front of the fruit store to wait for her to pick me up. Good morning, everyone. Nice to see you again. Today, I got dressed up in the traditional clothes of Bulangzuo. So my host gave it to me. I am now on the rooftop of her house. Look at those mountains and big trees. This is one of the birth places of the world's tea culture. Those are the bedrooms for the guests. There are three of them, and I live in that one. Let's go to the ground floor. That's a big wall to make tea. It's a living room and also a tea drinking room. There is also a first floor, which is there. It's a kitchen. Most of the houses in this village are modern houses. They are different from the traditional stilt house, but still you can see some of the traditional elements. So my host gave me this because we are going to the festival. That's the hair decoration, and this is her wardrobe. It looks good. Let's have a look. The back looks good. It's beautiful. Let's eat. Okay. This is our lunch. We have a rotating table, which is pretty cool. There are some interesting dishes. First of all, this one, that is bee. Yesterday, we got some beehives from Lantang market, street market, and they cook it with some Chinese leek. And we've got some chou kui, fried fish, and vegetables with pork. This is grounded leaf, and pepper. This is kuchang. What's inside? We put a lot of ingredients. This is also a traditional dish. The total population of Bulang people is a little bit more than 120,000, so it's not a very big group. But they are indigenous to this region, and they are the earliest people who started cultivating tea plantations. They are also the ones who passed on this knowledge to other minorities in this region, such as Wazu and Daizu. For them, tea is everything. They drink tea, they make tea, they worship tea trees, and for them, tea is everything. This is my outfit of the day. I've also got a white sandal, because it suits better with my black dress, and this is our offering to the tea god. It's loose tea, wrapped in bamboo shoes, cover, and this is a candle, yellow thing is a candle, and a 20 yuan note. I'm going there soon with A Jie. We can already hear the sound. They are dancing right now, and this ceremony is on this mountain, this small hilltop. So everyone in the village is here, that's why there is a long queue. We are a little bit late. Everyone is getting dressed up. So you also have to be careful, because some people might pour water onto you, because the Shankangjie is also a little bit similar to the Songkran festival. Dai people and Hulong people they share a lot of culture and festival together, so during their Shankangjie, there is also a water pouring event. Look, the big water bucket. Without any exception, everyone has a tea, a candle, and a banknote. So there are together 10 different villages for the event, and that's why there are a lot of people and it's crowded. Inside this room there is the ancestor of Hulong people. The first one who settled down here and start the settlement. His name is Pa Ai Long. The most beautiful daughter of the king married here. And perhaps that explains why Dai people and Hulong people have such a close relation. The princess of Dai people was married to the ancestor of Hulong people. That is the ancestor of Hulong people. The ritual is you go there, you give your offering, you kowtow, you go on your knees and do that three times. This is a crab's foot. Yes, it's very expensive. One kilogram is 5,000 yuan. One kilogram is 5,000 yuan? Wow, this is one of the most expensive parasitic plants. It can lower the altitude and blood sugar. It can also reduce inflammation. It can also enhance the essence of wealth. Okay. Crab's foot. So literally it's called a crab feet and looks like that. It has a lot of medical effect and that's why it's very expensive. But again, if you're an expert tell me what it is exactly. There are also some pretty interesting fruits in the village. That is jackfruit. This is a tree and I guess this is a fig. I really want to show you because I'm crazy about fruits that you can pick up. Looks like fig and smells like alcohol. I think it's already bad. But very interesting plant. So if you know what kind of fruit is that please write your answer in a comment and help me to learn more about this beautiful nature. Good morning everyone. So yesterday I have moved to Wengdingchun this village. It's a representative, very typical Bulang village. So like every village in this region, all the families here they live on tea farming. However, all the houses remain their traditional style. So today I want to show you this beautiful village and the life here. I'm going to start with the place where I live. I live with a local family, a tea farmer. This is their house. It's one of the relatively bigger house in the village. And it's also in better condition. This is the ground floor. They have a tea shop where they sell their self-made tea. Yanzi came in. In the backyard, it's their tea factory. This is a big walk to make tea. And that is a roasting or baking machine for tea. That's the tea they made yesterday. I think the second floor is the storage or the sun drying room. They also have a small restaurant where they make breakfast for tourists. So this is the kitchen. And this is the restaurant. They can make very simple breakfast such as rice noodles. And I live on the second floor. This is a traditional typical paya house. It's all wood. There are some small knives. Orchid. They don't really have many rooms for tourists. There are altogether only two rooms for the tourists. Yeah. This is my room. A small room. We have a shared toilet by everyone. On the door of this family, there is quite an interesting form documenting the yearly income of the year 2019. So the total income for farming including gu cha di, sheng tai cha, shui tian yu mi, zhu ji. So everything added together, it is 190,000 yuan for a family of six. Excluding, I guess, the income from the hotel accommodation and the restaurant. So this family is actually one of the family with higher income in the village because they take a very good position. There are lots of tourists sometimes coming for drink and buy some teas. But not every family earns this much. Let's go. I'm going to show you around. There is another village called Nuo Gan. It's lived by Dai people. It's very similar to this one. It's also less touristy. If you are visiting Jinmai Shan, I also recommend that you go there as well. I'm not going to show you, unfortunately. But I have been there. I just didn't make any video about it. Every family is a small tea factory. Every family makes tea, sells tea. You will get invited to try tea for free. Some people complain that it's too much commercialized. But I found it's unfair because tea is their only source of income. It's natural that they will sell their tea to make some money. The difference between Dai village and Bulang village is that you can see that from the top, on the rooftop, that is the shape of tea leaves. Whereas in Dai village, it's the shape of a buffalo horn. That's water. There is a big water tank in every house because all the houses are wooden structure. It's very easy to catch fire. In case of that, they can take water directly from the water tank. In this family, they are making dried bananas. Naturally dried bananas. It's very tasty. Also, every family has a big wok to roast tea or to bake tea. It's very big. All Bulang villages follow a similar pattern. There is always a Buddhist temple. This is a Buddhist temple. It's on the top of the village. In Jimaishan, there are both Bulang villages and also Dai villages. Those two people actually have a very close relationship with one another. Bulang people use Dai calendar. They celebrate almost the same festivals. The architecture style is very similar. They are just finishing picking tea leaves. They often pick tea leaves during the daytime and cook tea at night. This is also the end of today's video. I hope you enjoy watching it. Tomorrow, I'm going to show you the traditional way of making tea. Thanks for watching and see you next time.