A disk of compressed Pu-erh tea for sale at a tea market in Yunnan

It’s not often that one encounters a tourist souvenir that lowers cholesterol, promotes weight loss and protects against cancer, vascular disease, cognitive degeneration and aging – not to mention providing important nutrients like amino acids.

But tea is believed to have these virtues and recent research shows that certain types of Pu-erh tea from China’s Yunnan province have particularly potent levels of beneficial chemical compounds.

WildChina visits Pu-erh production areas in Yunnan on its trip ‘The Ancient Tea & Horse Caravan Road: An Expedition with Jeff Fuchs.’ Learning about the fascinating history of the ancient trade routes along which Pu-erh tea once traveled by horseback to Tibet is a highlight of many clients’ trips.

Another highlight is trekking in Yunnan through tea agro-forests and wild tea gardens where members of exotic ethnic minorities like the Bulang, Lahu and Akha have tended organic tea gardens for generations in the general area from which tea is believed to have first emerged.

In fact, it is believed to be these small-scale, natural growing practices which impart the best Pu-erh tea with heightened health benefits. Most tea in the world these days is produced in sprawling plantations, planted in neat rows in direct sunlight and often treated with chemical fertilizers, pesticides and other agricultural chemicals.

Not so with the finest Yunnan Pu-erh tea. To start with, it is not all produced from a genetically uniform crop. As we learned recently from the excellent book Tea Horse Road, Pu-erh is produced from a dozen wild cousins and hundreds of landraces of the Camellia sinensis plant – each particularly adapted to the climate of the particular hillside, or even grove, where it has traditionally been grown.

And instead of being grown in a tea monoculture, these trees (many reach an age of a few hundred years and a height of 50 or more feet) grow shaded from harsh sunlight in a natural ecosystem with hundreds of other plant, animal and insect species.

Thriving in their natural environment, agro-forest and tea garden trees produce higher levels of the beneficial compounds that first drew humans to start drinking tea, likely as a medical elixir, some three thousand or more years ago.

A study published last year in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology¹ compared Pu-erh from both terrace plantations and ecologically friendly agro-forests, measuring levels of tea catechins, flavonoid compounds that are thought to be beneficial to human health and are present to varying degrees in most non-herbal tea. The authors found that tea from the agro-forests had average catechin levels several times higher than the plantation tea.

So if you find yourself in southern Yunnan, relaxing after a day of trekking through ancient tea gardens and sipping on a cup of Pu-erh, you can feel good about the fact that a hike isn’t the only good thing you’re doing for your health that day. And don’t forget that a compressed cake packs great for the trip home.

1: See: Ahmed, et al “Pu-erh tea tasting in Yunnan, China: Correlation of drinkers’ perceptions to phytochemistry“, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 132 (2010) 176–185

You may have read that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was just quarantined with his wife and a member of his staff after sitting near an ill passenger on a flight to China. While only a very small number of people have been quarantined upon arrival, we thought we’d post the information we know about the H1N1 flu to give travelers to China an idea of what to expect.

With the SARs experience still very fresh, the government is taking strong precautionary measures to prevent a local outbreak. Some visits to local villages or schools may be cancelled as there is concern that “foreigners” have a higher risk of being carriers of the swine flu. There has been an upgrade of hygiene throughout the country, with restaurants/hotels providing more sanitary dispensers, towels etc.

While the majority of people travel into China without problem, we did have a client who was on a flight  with a confirmed H1N1 carrier.  As the client was not sitting within 3 rows of the passengers, the client was allowed to continue on his journey.  However, health authorities followed up with 2 calls a day to our tour guide to check on symptoms.

Ministry of Health officials have boarded certain planes, depending on their origin and if any sick passengers are on board. In such cases, these officials are measuring all passengers’ temperatures and inspecting required health forms carefully before allowing them to disembark as a group. If officials determine that sick passengers or those in contact with them have the potential of being infected with A(H1N1), they are quarantining them for up to 7 days. So far, we understand that only a very small percentage of all international arrivals have been quarantined.

The US Embassy in Beijing has posted a long, informative letter with information including the procedures the Chinese government is using to determine if anyone on your flight is sick, what to do if you are quarantined, and who to contact.

While we don’t think there are serious health risks involving travel to China, as with any sort of traveling you might do, anywhere in the world, be aware that you might experience delays or inconveniences. At WildChina, we’re working hard to make our guests trips to China once-in-a-lifetime adventures. We’ve run numerous trips since the outbreak of H1N1 flu with no flu-related issues, and invite you to experience China differently, H1N1 flu or not!

For more health information on the H1N1 flu, visit the World Health Organization site.