One of our favorite things about getting off the beaten path in China is that no matter how well you think you may understand the country, there’s always a surprise waiting to prove you wrong.

This was illustrated when we visited the small village of Nongyang, several miles outside of Menghai, in southern Yunnan. We were in search of suancha, a fermented tea that is eaten rather than drunk.

Nongyang is primarily inhabited by the Bulang ethnic group, who along with the Hani and Dai are considered one of the main stewards of some of the region’s finest tea plantations.

Often referred to as ‘pickled tea’, suancha is probably better translated as ‘sour tea’. The ever-hospitable Bulang serve suancha at weddings and celebrations. As our hosts in Nongyang noted, if you don’t have suancha, you can’t get married.

The production of suancha is surprisingly complex. First the tea is cooked for around 10 minutes, after which it is drained, then packed into a section of bamboo, which is then sealed with red clay.

The bamboo tube is buried for six months to two years, and is frequently watered while underground to aid the fermentation process.

We were lucky enough to visit our hosts on a day when they were digging up a bamboo tube of suancha that had been buried for more than a year. The flavor was a sour but clean variation on the classic green tea experience.

When eating suancha, Bulang people either eat it straight or they may mix in salt, garlic and chili and serve with rice. We ate several pinches of suancha straight from the bowl and found it to stimulate our hunger. Taking our cue from our stomachs, we headed back to Menghai for a local feast.

There’s no better way to understand tea than to see where it comes from and how the locals who understand it best enjoy it – that’s exactly what we did in Menghai, a sleepy but charming town in southern Yunnan’s Xishuangbanna region.

Menghai is best known for being home to some of the oldest – and best – tea plants in the world. With tea expert Jeff Fuchs as our guide, we visited the Tianlong Tea Shop, which is run by Yang Zhibiao, a Yunnan native who is as knowledgeable about tea as he is hospitable.

The tea that grows around Menghai comes from an assamica varietal of camellia sinensis, which is generally referred to as pu’er tea. There are three kinds of pu’er tea:

Shengcha: dried green tea leaves that brew an aromatic yellow liquor with a slight bitterness

Shoucha: leaves that have aged and fermented naturally over time, ideally at least fifteen years, that brew a reddish-brown liquor with an earthy flavor – this kind of tea can also be called chencha

Cooked pu’er: a tea made by a technique in which a process is used to essentially cut corners and quickly create a product that resembles shoucha, but is inferior in both taste and health benefits

As you might be able to guess, Yang and others who take tea seriously in Menghai only drink the first two varieties of pu’er tea. As for cooked pu’er, he says the production process ruins the tea by destroying many of the healthy properties found in the leaves and reducing the antioxidant content.

Yang selected two varieties of shoucha for us to sample, both of which were grown in the area. The first was laobanzhang pu’er, which he broke off from a 400-gram flat round cake. He prepared a small pot with eight grams of dried leaves, which he said could be steeped 15 times.

Not every steeping of tea is the same – the first steeping opens up the leaves for what is essentially a parabolic flavor curve, with the third and fourth steepings the best. As Yang busily steeped and poured the tea, we sipped away, appreciate the subtle change in each steeping.

The laobanzhang began quite subtly, with a mild, almost nutty quality to it. Over several steepings it began to open up to the palate revealing new layers of complexity. By the tenth steeping, we were noticing a distinct tea buzz that wasn’t just caffeine – tea contains around 450 different stimulant compounds.

Yang encouraged us to smell our small tea cups after emptying them. We did so, noticing a light but lingering aroma. Jeff explained that the smell of good tea should remain in the cup afterward, indicating a superior vegetal complex. He added that this was one of the tricks of the trade used by professional tea tasters.

Next Yang prepared a pot of ziye, or purple leaf, tea for us to taste. The darker leaves produced a slightly more flavorful liquor with a pleasant hint of sweetness. These leaves have a slightly higher sugar content than other teas.

After the gentle crescendo and decrescendo of the pot of ziye, we were all feeling slightly wired, but not in the uncomfortable way that is associated with excessive coffee consumption. This is normal for people who don’t slurp the vast quantities of tea that Yang and Jeff do each day.

Jeff offered us some basic tea drinking tips: don’t drink tea on an empty stomach, and have a small snack such as chocolate on hand if you plan on having more than just a cup or two.

Before we left Yang’s shop with a few cakes in tow, Jeff explained to us that in addition to his shop, Yang is working with local growers to create a growing collective that will focus on giving local growers a larger slice of the economic pie, while also focusing on the quality of the leaves rather than quantity. We raised our teacups to the future of his endeavors.

Guizhou may not attract as much attention as its neighbors Sichuan, Yunnan and Guangxi, but it certainly deserves to be considered when making plans to travel to southwest China.

Beautiful mountain scenery and a distinctive spicy and sour cuisine are reason enough to visit Guizhou. But as in many other parts of China, the main draw for us is the people.

This was illustrated perfectly today when we traveled with some friends to Wangba Village, one hour outside of the southeast Guizhou city of Kaili.

The residents of Wangba Village are members of the Gejia ethnic group, who are officially a subgroup of the Miao minority, but many will tell you that they are not Miao. There are similarities such as their shared fondness for the lusheng reed instrument and a penchant for rice wine, but the Gejia have their own identity, of which they are rightly proud.

As our van arrived at the bottom of Wangba Village we were greeted by a small group of Gejia women ranging in age from late teens to their forties. Wearing bright embroidered costumes, intricate silver jewelry and unique hats, they were one of the more memorable welcomes we’d had in a while.

Singing a song to welcome us, they poured rice wine into bowls and then poured the bowls into our mouths. Once we had drank the rice wine, they stamped our faces with a small chop, leaving a red character on our foreheads and cheeks.

We headed uphill for twenty minutes before entering lower Wangba Village, which is home to roughly 200 people. The village and its neighboring villages are home to a total of 3,000 people – miniscule by Chinese standards. Along the way, passersby smiled and offered warm nihaos (hellos).

We were led into the courtyard of a Gejia family. The men were working in a nearby town, leaving the women and children at home. The women are skilled at embroidery and weaving and also make batiks using beeswax and indigo.

The simple courtyard offered scenic views of the mountain valley below that were complemented by the clear blue skies and warm sun. Wheat was drying in the sun on tarps on the ground, while ears of corn dried in the eaves of the home above.

A couple of pigs snorted in their pens as an ox yawned in its stable. A small brown dog which looked like many of the other dogs in Wangba looked at us curiously as we spoke with the women.

One woman, an 18 year-old named Feifang, spoke better Mandarin than the rest, many of whom were extremely limited in China’s official language, which was their second language. Polite, genuine and obviously very intelligent, Feifang told us about life in Wangba while the other women were busy stitching, weaving and even making a batik.

As we spoke with Feifang, more and more local children from around Wangba found their way into the courtyard. Shy at first, they warmed up when we showed them the photographs we had taken of them with our digital cameras.

One of the feistier women swept up the wheat, cracking jokes with us in Mandarin and with her friends in the Gejia language. It was time for us to be on our way, but not before one last round of rice wine and song.

After three more gulps of the strong but warming elixir, the women sang a farewell song and brought us to the top of the trailhead that would lead us down to our van below.

After saying our goodbyes to our gracious hosts, we’d been walking for only a few seconds when Feifang burst into song by herself. The words, which none of us understood, floated down to us and lightened our steps as we made our way down the winding trail. We may have only been in Wangba for a couple of hours, but it’s safe to say that they were a couple of hours that none of us will ever forget.

It’s been almost a year since we first spoke with Portrait of an LBX bikers and writers Andy Keller and Evan Villarrubia. We caught up with them this week to talk about their reflections on their trip, which ended on September 13, 2010.

LBX's spectacular campsite in Qinghai province, August 2010 (Photo: Portrait of an LBX)

WildChina Travel: Now that you’ve finished with the trip, how can you define laobaixing? How has your understanding of the term, and the people that define it, expanded, been flipped on its head, morphed, etc.?

Andy Keller: I think laobaixing boils down to a political term, as politics controls so much in China, although it has an economic aspect as well, since politics is so tied to money in China (as with anywhere else). China’s laobaixing make up the vast majority of Chinese people. It’s not just a synonym for “peasant” or “farmer” because it’s not just the people out in the countryside who are laobaixing. Basically, they are the people who have less power in the face of the government.

Evan Villarrubia: All the charm of China has come from individual people, the ones “doing their own thing” in accordance with traditions and their own values — the laobaixing. “New China” has come from outside of the laobaixing.

WCT: Do you still believe that the term laobaixing can define and encompass the people / socioeconomic group that you encountered and interacted with on your trip? Why or why not?

AK: Absolutely. With very few exceptions when we met relatives of friends working in the government or party or big business people, the people we interacted with on the trip were all laobaixing. The number of people without government connections in China is so large that really there’s no way the group of people we interacted with could not almost all be laobaixing.

WCT: What was your greatest surprise on the trip? Your biggest regret?

EV: For me, the biggest surprise was the Tibetan plateau. I had never seen skies like that before, and we never expected how different the people were from anything else we’d encountered. The biggest regret of the trip was not making it to either Hubei or Hunan, two quintessentially Chinese places right in the middle of the country, which our big loop didn’t permit time to visit. This will have to be rectified later.

AK: The biggest surprise for me was discovering just how development and modernity almost always trumped concern for culture, the environment, traditional society, etc. We went into the trip with the impression that with so much good stuff disappearing everyday, people would have to be up in arms about it once we sat down and had honest conversations. By and large though, the people we met were as single-mindedly focused on “development” as the government and were happy to leave tradition, culture and even the natural environment behind for the sake of their concept of modernity.

Despite what you see in the media, most laobaixing are not dowsing themselves in gasoline and lighting themselves on fire on the roofs of their homes as the demolition cranes move in. Most are content to take compensation and move out of their homes, away from the fields, away from their communities and into apartment complexes outside of the city, where the communities and social networks that made traditional China so unique no longer exist.

My biggest regret was definitely the places we didn’t get to see – Hubei, Hunan, Xinjiang, Tibet and pretty much all of Dongbei.

WCT: Which area(s) of China ended up being your favorite? Why?

EV: Yunnan, for natural beauty, colors, extreme cultural variations, food, and tea. You can spend days cruising chilly mountaintop villages above endless rice terraces with the Yi and Hani, and the next day drop into the Dai valleys full of pineapples, coconuts, and wooden stilt homes. As long as you stay off the tourist trail, there’s no end to the surprises.

AK: Ditto.

WCT: What is one piece of advice you would give to travelers who want to experience the ‘real’ side of China?

EV: Stick to the mountains, small roads, and small villages where real culture, real beauty and real people still exist.

Read more of Andy and Evan’s reflections and trip accounts at Portrait of an LBX.

Finding unique clothing that satisfies the needs of WildChina guides in China’s coldest areas, while allowing them to look the part when in remote boutique hotels, is not an easy task. When leading off-the-beaten-path tours to China’s most remote regions, how does a rugged, adventurous guide maintain a clean, professional look? Khunu to the rescue.

Khunu offers a new set of locally-sourced yak wool sweaters in the new Autumn/Winter collection.

We at WildChina are delighted to announce our partnership with Khunu, a premium clothing company focused on producing high-quality adventure wear from Tibetan and Mongolian yak wool. This season, Khunu will be clothing our Shangri-La region guides in Khunu Chimera tops – soft, lightweight and warm garments that are perfect for guiding bespoke trips with sophistication in colder weather. These guides are the perfect adventurers to sport the socially-conscious brand, as Shangri-La is known for its rich cultural diversity and notable population of yaks.

WildChina founder Mei Zhang is impressed by both quality and cultural significance of Khunu garments. “When I first heard about what Khunu was doing,” she says, “I was intrigued by the concept but unsure about what the products would be like. It was something of a surprise to feel how warm and soft their garments are.”  (Yak wool has a luxurious feel that can often be mistaken for cashmere, though it is warmer and notably more durable.) In addition to Khunu’s high level of quality, Mei notes, “the unique link [the garments] have to the regions to which we travel gives them additional relevance” to WildChina’s mission of enabling travelers to experience China differently.

To celebrate the WildChina-Khunu alliance, as well as a new womens line for the Autumn/Winter Collection, Khunu is offering WildChina supporters a limited time 15% discount on all new Khunu sweaters through November 11, 2010. Customers can use the code “wildchina” during checkout at the Khunu online store.

Visit the Khunu website for more information on their story, products, and adventurous ambassadors.

Today at WildChina, we received one of the greatest gifts that one can in the travel industry: a beautifully-written, heart-felt, and interesting account by a client of their recent Chinese Treasures journey with WildChina to Beijing, Xi’an, Yunnan province, and Shanghai.

Below is Chuck and Kathie’s story.

“You have to understand, Chuck, economically we are capitalists.  Socially we remain communists.  And, that’s not easy to reconcile.”

We look at our guide as we approach the front gate of our Tibetan hosts for the evening.  It is not the first time we’ve heard sentiments such as this.  During our nearly 10 days in China, multiple WildChina guides have done their best to show us life through indigenous eyes and provide us context to Chinese thinking.  We learned of generational divides – where Mom cannot understand why a 30-something guide prefers to be an entrepreneur rather than wish for the days when Chairman Mao “provided for us and we did not have to worry about anything.”  We heard of collateral fallout from 4-2-1 (4 grandparents, 2 parents and only one child), a result of the one child policy.  We silently chuckled as we listened to concerns about the “younger generation”, this from a 35 year-old, no less.  Being 60+  years ourselves, we wisely kept our mouths shut.

Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an

As we arrive for tonight’s dinner, our focus shifts to the family who will open their home and their hearts to us.  We stand at nearly 11,000 feet in Zhongdian in the Yunnan Provence, surveying the courtyard where in the winter animals are brought from the hills.  There is a small tractor and a barn on the ground floor that in the coldest months helps heat the rooms above.  Our host for the evening, a 14 year-old girl with timid eyes, escorts us to the second floor, where we enter a large room with beautiful lacquered wood corbels and intricate painted details.  A wood-burning cooking area with smoke escaping through the ceiling captures our attention while two bare light bulbs bracket low couches and a table where we will eat.   Standing in the corner is 84 year-old great-grandma.  Her eyes are anything but timid.

After our young host finished showing us additional rooms and a storage area for mounds of yak butter, great-grandma catches Chuck’s eye and she pats a space beside her on a low bench by the fire.  When we sit down she motions with gnarled hands as she speaks to us.  Our guide is in another part of the room.  But it is okay as we smile and great-grandma goes right on talking.

Dinner is accompanied by yak-butter tea and Baijiu [a Chinese rice-based alcohol].  We refuse nothing and enjoy it all.  Chuck shows our young hostess his camera, which immediately breaks down what’s left of her reserve, and she laughs when seeing pictures of friends taken today in the city.   The room has filled with mom, dad, sister and cousins.  Our guide tells them Kathie dances ballet, so a trade is arranged.  They will dance for us if Kathie hoofs her way through a few steps.

And then they dress us.  With rough-skinned hands the women wrap and cinch us while everyone laughs at how we look.  Following more pictures, the women, generations four, three and one (two is not there), perform a line dance that shines with tradition.  Kathie joins them and, along with the youngest, soon matches the footsteps while soft Tibetan words are sung by the elders.  Dad stands to the side with a warm smile as he watches his family with seeming amusement.  Chuck catches the 8 year-old sister, with huge wide-open eyes and lips set in a firm line, as she stares hard at him through the barrel of his camera lens.

On the way back to the hotel, our guide is moved to comment that something unusual happened here tonight.  We are not the first to be brought to this home, but before, our hosts did not dress the guests and great-grandma remained strictly in the background.   There is a message here: what you give can determine what you will receive.

WildChina presents opportunities.  They put you in position to experience something special but if you want it, you have to put a bit of yourself out there; you must be the one to build a platform that supports everybody to open themselves.

Consider this from the host’s perspective.  By sharing a bit of yourself, you become something more than a tourist there to be fed and watch the Native Show.  You interact with them “as people” and that raises the level of how meaningful this is for everyone.

Whether it is a Tibetan night of extending hands of friendship – or listening to a proud father in a Beijing hutong home tell you about his successful martial arts instructor son living in Houston – or two weeks’ worth of cultural immersion with warm and eager guides – if you want to maximize the value of what you paid just to get here, you must go beyond simply seeing what is around you.  You must jump in.  And, as you say goodbye you too can hear, “I’m very western.  We can hug.”

Chuck & Kathie Neuenschwander

Photo: Michael Mudd

Shanghai seems to be the hub of travel news this week! Here’s what’s piqued our interest today:

• High-speed Shanghai to Hong Kong train: In addition to the newly-unveiled Shanghai to Hangzhou bullet train (watch video footage from WSJ), the Fragrant Harbor will now have high-speed access to (arguably) China’s most glamorous city with the Shanghai to Hong Kong bullet train in development. We’re keeping our eye on how these lines will affect travel during peak holiday seasons and the popularity of lesser-known river towns and tea plantations outside of Hangzhou.

• From volunteer to visitor: As the 2010 Shanghai Expo comes to a close this month, those who kept the months-long event running finally got their chance to experience it as guests. Watch the video footage of volunteers switching roles.

• Expo breaks World Fair attendance record: In the last few days, the Expo broke the record for World Fair visitors. Congratulations, Shanghai!  (But given China’s population and the amount of marketing and advertising done for the event, we’re not too surprised.)

Eco-friendly travel gadgets are becoming more and more popular among avid travelers. Knowing that traveling affects the environment, many people are looking to minimize their impact. One way to do this without sacrificing any preferences or luxuries is eco-friendly travel gear.

Alternative energy use items are particularly useful in China as there are not cafés around every corner for you to charge your electronics in and when there are outlets they are not compatible with Western plugs. In addition, because water quality is very low, people are forced to buy a large amount of bottled water.

When I first arrived in Beijing, my hotel did not have a plug adapter and neither did I so if my computer or cell phone ran out of electricity, I had to find a Western café and pay for drinks I didn’t actually want in order to charge my electronics. Plus, lugging around my chargers with me all day weighed down my already heavy backpack. An all-purpose charger, especially one that I didn’t need to go to a store to use, would have been much more convenient.

Wary of the water in rural Guizhou? A travel-sized Steripen will come in handy when your last water bottle has run out. (Photo: Steripen.com)

Today there is a growing number of eco-friendly travel products ranging from practical to outrageous in both function and price. There are cell phones made from recycled water bottles, biodegradable external hard drives, solar-powered media players, speakers make from recycled cardboard, shake flashlights, wind-up radios, luggage made from recycled materials, and much more. However, many of these items carry a hefty price tag, and although a biodegradable laptop sounds great, paying $2000 for it does not.

Through a bit of research, I have found some of the most useful items for eco-friendly traveling in China:

1. USB or solar-powered electronic charger: $60. This can charge almost any electronic item so you don’t have to bring a whole slew of other chargers or buy a plug adapter which is otherwise necessary when traveling to China.
2. Water-powered digital alarm clock: $16. This would be great if you are camping or traveling to a remote village such as Yubeng, Yunnan.
3. USB rechargeable battery: $16.65 for two AA batteries. These would help you avoid a situation of having your non-rechargeable AA batteries die in a remote place where you cannot buy replacements.
4. Water-purifying pen: $60. This pen allows you to drink tap water safely so you can avoid purchasing bottled water everywhere you go.

Travel gear and gadget companies are continually coming up with innovative products to lessen our environmental impact while traveling. If you wish to lessen the impact of your travels, you may want to consider these products when planning your trip to China or anywhere else.

This past week, China Daily reported that Beijing’s rescue team, “Luye,” responded to four emergency calls during the week-long October Holiday alone – all from travelers who needed assistance in remote areas outside of the city proper.

As, according to the article, this and similar teams received only 9 similar calls for all of 2009, what is causing this rising trend in travel emergencies?

Luye head Lu Zhonghong attributed the increase to lesser-known spots preferred by travelers and lack of know-how, saying, ”Most people who get into trouble those days are travelers without professional knowledge and the equipment they need to hike.”

Though “people increasingly prefer to travel in undeveloped areas and in the mountains around the city,”  he said “it can be very dangerous to climb such peaks, especially when people are not familiar with the terrain.”

We’re strong proponents of off-the-beaten-path travel in China – but, safety is also our first priority. Here are our tips for experiencing China’s unique sites without ending up lost, injured, or worse:

1. Choose your destination wisely: Adventure is one thing; danger is another. Research destinations carefully, because someone’s definition of “difficult” might be your idea of certainly unsafe. Consult travel operators, travel review websites, and other travelers.
2. Explore with an expert: Just because you’re a good adventurer doesn’t necessarily mean you can navigate unknown terrain without a local guide. Do your research and make sure that you are traveling with a well-trained, experienced guide who can knows the area, terrain, and routes like the back of his or her hand. (We know plenty – just ask.)
3. Off-road during the off-peak: Holiday periods in China are notorious for logistical issues that may cause delays and cancellations. If you are traveling remotely during a Golden Week or other popular travel period, emergency services may not be able to act as swiftly on your behalf. Choose a time to adventure when rescue teams, hospitals, and police will be less busy.
4. Have connections handy: If you’ve traveled China extensively or live in the country, you might not want a guide to take you beyond the tourist hubs. In that case, make sure that you have plenty of local contacts whom you can call or find in the event of an emergency. Information for friends’ families, local hotel / lodge owners, and regional emergency hotlines should be on hand at all times.
5. And, of course, do not travel alone.