Follow one leaf across a thousand years.
For a millennium, caravans carried brick tea from Yunnan's high valleys into Tibet. The road they wore into the mountains still exists — in market towns, in family courtyards, in the morning tea of monks.
This journey follows that leaf: a pu'er master in the Kunming tea markets, a tie-dye inheritor's private workshop in Dali, a banquet cooked by the descendants of caravan leaders in Xizhou, the stone lanes of Shaxi at dusk, and Songzanlin monastery above the clouds — where our morning begins with the monks' own tea.
Eight days overland, by private car and business-class rail, staying in Songtsam lodges and heritage courtyards. Four rare accesses, confirmed in writing.
Evening arrival; a Yunnan-table welcome dinner of wild mushrooms and mountain ham.
A pu'er master opens crates most buyers never see; evening flight or rail to Dali.
A tie-dye inheritor's private workshop in Zhoucheng; Erhai lakeside at the golden hour.
The Bai courtyards of Xizhou with an architecture scholar; a banquet cooked by a caravan leader's descendants.
South to the caravan market town the modern world forgot; stone-paved evening, market-morning.
To Lijiang via the high pass; Naxi music with an inheritor family in their courtyard.
Tiger Leaping Gorges on foot below the road; up to Shangri-La for the night.
Morning tea with the monks of Yunnan's greatest Tibetan monastery; departure after.
Tie-dye and Naxi music, taught in family courtyards — not showrooms.
A banquet with the family of a horse-caravan leader, in their Xizhou home.
Songzanlin's library and tea, in the monks' own hour.
Everyone sees the Wall. Almost no one has it to themselves.
Our home ground. Nobody hosts Chengdu better than the people who live it.
Two Chinas in one week: the skyline that out-dreams fiction, and the lake that taught China poetry.
First-picked Longjing at Meijiawu, West Lake in spring rain, a private boat up to the tea fields.
The 3,000-metre summer: Songtsam lodges, alpine meadows, a monastery library above the clouds.
The Wall in its best coat, golden ginkgo in the Forbidden City's courts, a duck feast after the day-trippers leave.
The Ice Festival before the gates open, Siberian tigers at feeding hour, a hotpot that thaws you whole.
A named tailor replies within 12 hours. Your first proposal within 24.