Remorse about the "Authentic Mountain Tea": Packaging Puer Tea in Yiwu

Abstract

This paper provides an ethnography of Puer tea in one of its original production sites-Yiwu township in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan. It portrays the interaction between outside visitors and locals in packaging the authenticity of Yiwu and its Puer tea. It also shows how the rise and fall of Puer tea has deeply shaped the local agriculture, economics, ecological environment, tea processing techniques, and consumption customs. By reflecting how changes in the price of Puer tea has generated happiness and wealth as well as worries, uncertainties and remorse for local people, it suggests that in the era of modernization and globalization, the symbolic meanings attached to things are far more complicated than before and need to be re-explored more contextually and historically.