When most people think of Iceland, the first thing that comes to mind is a country in northern Europe. However, what we call Iceland today is a chapter in the story of Chinese Pu'er tea, located in the Pu'er Tea Mountain in Mengku Town, Shuangjiang County, Lincang City, Yunnan Province, China.
Good tea habitat and famous mountains to live, choose beautiful water as neighbors", from the beginning of entering Mengku Iceland, this sentence in my heart more profound. In winter, entering Mengku Iceland, the mountains are high and the fog is thick, and the Mengku River is clear and endless. If it weren't for the cold feeling of early morning, the greenery would make people feel like they were in a trance of summer. Meandering along the edge of the Mengku River, the view gradually widens up with the curve of the winding mountain road. Every time I thought I had reached the top of the mountain, there was no sense of steadiness on the winding road ahead.
The roadside is full of bamboo, and the local hospitable guide learned that there are different types of bamboo on the roadside. I would like to call the two types of bamboo "sweet bamboo" and "bitter bamboo". The bamboo shoots of sweet bamboo can be eaten directly without blanching and soaking, and you can directly stir-fry a plate of fragrant smoked bacon, which makes you greedy when you think about it. The bamboo shoots of bitter bamboo need to be chopped and soaked for a period of time, and then pickled to become sour bamboo shoots. The stir-fried beef with sour bamboo shoots that we can often eat on weekdays is made of this kind of bamboo shoots as an adjunct.
Along the way, we can see the whole process of bamboo from the root to the top until it disappears. In the humorous and interesting children's words of the child brother, the winding mountain road has also become interesting. The car stopped on an open flat ground, and before it got out of the car, the three big red letters "Lake Iceland" were already in sight through the car window. We got off the bus and took a wave of photos to check in and see the scenery.
Lake Iceland is, strictly speaking, a local dam. Even without the sun's rays, the clarity of the lake is fascinating. A thin layer of mist is like a light veil attached to the surface of the water, no matter from a distance or up close, it is a beautiful appearance.
Soon after riding again, at a left-turning road, you can see a blue sign with the words "Princess of the South" standing in the tea mountain.
There is no calendar in the mountains, and the cold does not know the year. In the tea mountains in winter, it is difficult to see the orderly flow of the seasons only by the deep green shade in the tea mountains. In winter, the tea trees are mostly old leaves in previous years. In the Nanguo Princess Tea Garden, there are almost no new shoots in the treetops of the tea trees, and more are yellow and white camellia flowers and tea seeds that have not yet been completed. And the young seeds that only fall in this winter will go through the spring breeze, summer rain, autumn dew, and winter frost in the coming year, and will only land successfully in the fifth season when the spring breeze is born in another year.
Continue your drive up the road until you reach the tea plantation where the King of Iceland's tea trees are located.
From a distance, the King of Icelandic Tea Tree is about seven or eight meters tall and five meters wide, with lush branches and leaves. In order to facilitate tea picking, a stand built with bamboo poles is used to surround the surroundings so that the tea buds do not fall off when picking. After all, every piece of tea bud that falls is extremely precious. Because it is winter, it is not the tea picking season, and the tea tree king is separated by a bamboo fence around it, so we can't see the tea tree king up close. It is said that the bamboo fence is only opened when the tea leaves of the tea tree king are picked. In front of the tree stands a stone monument with the words "Icelandic Tea Tree King" engraved in red. The red lettering on the stele has begun to fade, revealing mottled marks.
According to online information, in 2023, 1.68 million ** in exchange for the right to pick this tea king tree for one year can be described as a sky-high price. The average Icelandic tea is also relatively high in the market.
If I hadn't drunk Icelandic Pu'er tea before I went, I would have thought that Icelandic tea was the result of market speculation. However, Icelandic tea has become the top of the Pu'er tea market, which is closely related to the quality of Icelandic tea itself.
To this day, I still remember the first time I drank the Southern Princess Iceland Dragon Ball, the sweet rock sugar, the sweet aroma of orchids, and the delicate soup that I perceived on my taste buds. Before the soup comes out of the soup, you can already smell the fragrance of orchids in the air, which is elegant and pleasant. Ershui comes out of the soup, the soup is golden and translucent, the entrance is sweet, and there is a great sense of pleasure in Lu Tong's pen of "one bowl of throat kiss moist, two bowls of loneliness". Originally, I didn't like to drink Pu'er tea, but because of the Icelandic Dragon Ball of the Southern Princess, I fell in love with Pu'er tea.
On the way back, I couldn't help but sigh that it was really "one side of the water and soil to raise one person". The ancestors of Mengku Iceland planted tea trees in the mountains to benefit future generations. Let this originally unknown place become the Pu'er tea production area where fragrant tea is spread far and wide. This time, I regretted not being able to sit quietly by the tea garden and drink a cup of Icelandic tea. Next time, I hope to enjoy the lively scene of the busy tea farmers and drink Icelandic tea up close and personal with the tea plantation.