Meet Our Tea Farmers

We met Grandma Li back in 2015. She’s now in her seventies, living a quiet life with her husband at the foot of a mountain in Cangwu County, Wuzhou, Guangxi. Her specialty? Liu Bao tea. And not just any Liu Bao — hers is, in our opinion, the very best in the village. The way she balances craftsmanship and raw materials is simply exceptional. Every year, she produces a few hundred jin of Liu Bao maocha, and we buy it all. Her home is one of the few remaining traditional black-brick houses in the region. It has a three-room, two-corridor layout. The center hall serves for hosting guests and honoring ancestors, while the side rooms are bedrooms. Additional side wings, used as kitchen or storage rooms, give the home a peaceful courtyard layout. Like many of the skilled tea farmers we visit, her home is spotless — a quiet kind of order that speaks volumes. Making tea is a meticulous craft. Temperature, humidity, roasting time, rolling pressure, fermentation — every tiny detail can affect the final quality. People who excel at this craft often have a deep sensitivity to detail, a strong sense of control, of rhythm and order. That habit naturally extends into their lives and into the way they keep their homes. These are Grandma Li’s hands. Many veteran tea makers — those who truly process tea by hand — have dark stains on their fingers: deep brown or even black. At first glance, they might look like dirt that won’t come off. But these marks aren’t from being unclean. They’re the marks of tea. During tea processing — especially during rolling, fixing, and roasting — tea polyphenols undergo oxidation. That’s the science behind the changing colors of Oolong and black tea. When hands are in contact with large amounts of fresh tea leaves, the juice seeps into the skin and reacts with oxygen in the air, creating thearubigins and other deep-colored compounds. These marks cling to the skin. They are, quite literally, the imprint of tea craftsmanship. One time, we asked Grandma Li to take us to her tea garden. It's located halfway up the mountain. We couldn’t believe how quickly she moved — this seventy-something-year-old woman was navigating narrow mountain trails faster than we, much younger, could keep up. As we climbed, Grandma Li couldn’t help but sigh, “I’m getting old…” Watching her back as she moved steadily up the trail, we felt an unexpected ache in our hearts. This was a path she had walked countless times — just like the way she makes tea, over and over again, day after day, year after year. Not for glory. Not for leisure. Just to make a living. In these isolated tea regions, only the elderly and left-behind children remain. The young have moved away to find work in the cities. These mountain tea gardens are rarely sprayed with pesticides or intensively managed. Yields are low. The income they generate isn’t enough to support a younger generation. Grandma Li’s tea-making skills might fade with her. No one may be there to carry them on. And yet, Grandma Li is just one of thousands of elderly tea makers in these remote mountain regions — a quiet symbol of a fading tradition. With their hands, they craft some of the finest tea in the world. But without access to good sales channels, the money they earn is barely enough to get by. We want to help — by bringing her tea, and the stories behind it, to more people. Maybe, if we can create a better market, some of those young parents will come home. Maybe they’ll learn from the older generation, stay with their children, and keep this beautiful mountain tradition alive.