I’ve been lurking on this Reddit thread for days, reading all your discussions about Chinese tea. As someone whose family has been growing tea in the mountains for four generations, I just can’t stay quiet anymore.

I’m from Yunnan. Let me introduce myself first. My family has been tending tea gardens in the mountains for four generations. We’re not a big brand. We do not have any physical stores. We have just a mountain and a family that’s been guarding these tea trees for decades. My English isn’t great, so I’m using a tool to help with this post. But this is the real me, not AI.

I want to talk about something real—something no one on the internet seems to mention. If you’re interested, pull up a chair and stay a while.

A while back, I saw someone ask on this forum: “How can I buy real, good Chinese tea?” The comments were filled with brand recommendations and links. I couldn’t help but smile, and sigh a little too.

I’m not laughing at you—I’m laughing at how absurd this is. Even us Chinese people now have to rely on luck to drink a cup of tea we can trust.

My family lives in a village in Yunnan, at an altitude of around 1,500 meters. The area is surrounded by mountains, and our tea garden is halfway up the mountain. It takes 40 minutes by car to get there, and the last stretch has to be walked. Back in the day, every household in the village grew tea. Spraying pesticides and using chemical fertilizers was common—it was easy and boosted yields. But my family didn’t follow suit. My elders’ reason was simple: drinking tea made with pesticides irritated his throat, and my mom got stomachaches from it.

Later, people from the organic certification body came. They took soil samples, tested the leaves, and checked the water source. It took over a year, but we got the certification. My elders and uncle put that certificate in a drawer, not on the wall. I asked them why they didn’t hang it up, and they said: “Real things don’t need to be shown off.”

I’ve kept those words in mind ever since.

Let’s talk about the tea you drink.

A lot of people ask: How do I choose black tea? What does white tea taste like? There are countless explanations online—flower and fruit notes, honey sweetness, mountain charm. All of that is true, but it’s also vague. Let me tell you something practical:

Good black tea brews into a clear, not cloudy, liquor. It tastes sweet. Still, it is not the artificial sweetness of sugar. Instead, it’s a natural sweetness that lingers in your throat after you swallow.

Good white tea has whole leaves, not crumbs. When brewed, the leaves keep their original shape, not turning into a mushy mess.

When it comes to organic tea, don’t trust the words on the packaging—trust your taste buds. If a tea stings your tongue, put it down. If it makes your throat tight, put it down. This applies no matter how pretty the packaging is.

My family mainly makes black tea and white tea. Our black tea is fully fermented, with a bright red liquor and a scent like dried Logan. Our white tea is made using traditional techniques. We do not stir-fry or roll the leaves. We just spread the leaves to wither and then dry them in the sun. Both teas are made from fresh leaves picked from the same garden. The garden uses no pesticides or growth stimulants. As a result, the tea trees grow slowly. But, the leaves are thick and plump. When you pick them, you can feel their weight in your palm.

Finally, let’s talk about what no one online mentions.

Nowadays, there are many “ancient tree tea,” “single tree tea,” and “pure mountain tea” on the market, with prices skyrocketing. Are they real? Very few are; most are fake. There are ancient tea trees near my home, some hundreds of years old. We can only pick a few tatties a year—nowhere near enough to meet the market demand. Where do all those “ancient tree teas” that sell thousands of tons a year come from? Use your imagination.

And organic tea—getting certified isn’t hard; the hard part is sticking to it year after year. Without chemical fertilizers, weeds grow wildly, so we have to hire people to pull them by hand. When insects come, we can’t spray pesticides—we can only hang yellow sticky traps and release natural predators. The cost is high, and the yield is low. Many people give up after a few years, but my family keeps going. No other reason—just habit.

That’s all I have to say for now.

If you love black tea or white tea, give Yunnan tea a try. It doesn’t have to be from my family. Try to find sellers who dare to tell you the origin. Make sure they let you check the tea leaves. When you drink it, think of that mountain. Mist lingers in the morning until ten o’clock. Pine trees and weeds grow beside the tea trees. Birds build nests there.

Come in and chat—I’ve got plenty of tea. Ask me anything, and I’ll answer everything I know.