This article frequently references and links to babelcarp. Babelcarp is a Chinese Tea Lexicon that is an essential resource for tea nerds that want to dive in further and don’t understand Chinese! This article also sources many maps from a TeaChat thread, original sources vary.
Home of the most famous tea factory, several high-profile areas (Lao Banzhang) and many of the most famous cakes from the masterpiece era of Pu’erh, Menghai County is both historically important in old school pu’erh and is featured prominently in much of contemporary pu’erh’s marketing. Much of the importance of region as both a brand and marker of terroir was covered in a post on Yiwu/Eastern Xishuangbanna. Locationwise, Menghai County is the westernmost county in Xishuangbanna, west of both Jinghong and Mengla. (more…)