Absolute must for all those who visit the Yunnan Lijiang continues to tourists and visitors in China and around the world dream. UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, this city, "preserved" in Chinese, is one of the few cities to resist bulldozer and can still leave imagine what China of yesteryear. Sometimes called the Chinese Venice, and it will undoubtedly charm the charm that will leave ... horripilera and others. If I speak of Lijiang today is not because I converted in tourism, or that I intend to sell you a dream but because for a very short time the winding streets Lijiang saw mushrooming and thousands of tea shops. Patties puerh (Pu Er tea) thus dethroned in less than two years jade bracelets in the top 10 tourist souvenirs to bring Yunnan. If we remember that love is a very old puerh (Pu Er tea) tea trees that are at the origin are sometimes millennia we look less often sue recent years, thereby forgetting that puerh (Pu Er tea) as we know it today is something relatively new and evolving. Let us therefore today in this temple of Chinese tourism to a small tour of this new phenomenon ... puerh

Lijiang, fairy village heights Yunnan

With the look of a small village would be too grown up, the streets of Lijiang, winding cobbled old stone stretch for kilometers. They span a multitude of small stone bridges along under almost permanent sunshine of small channels in the clear water which happily swim big goldfish.

• 1.Views of old Lijiang.

At 2400m, the city, including the traditional wooden architecture immerses us in the past invites us into the magic of a real postcard:puppy stone towering over a gray roofs string of lantern red, off a snowy mountain peaks in 5500, old Naxi women in traditional costume and dance through the streets of the village, typical foods galore ... Lijiang and seems to live in another time and transports the visitor who wanders from reality ... At least the first time you put your feet and if you want to spend a weekend in the dream cardboard flap that kind of Chinese Disneyland sells us.

• 6.Views of old Lijiang

Lijiang, the largest ethno-tourism attraction park Yunnan

Lijiang is the number one tourist destination in Yunnan and radiation throughout Asia. Praised by all the tourist guides and travel agencies are millions of people who come each year to spend a few glorious days, alone, with family, with friends or as a group. Out of the plane, train or coach generally avoids going through the new Lijiang, a small village bordering the concrete old Lijiang and soon to curl 2 million inhabitants, it goes immediately to the "amusement park":the old city if we rely on the architecture seems not to have changed since centuries but whose size explodes every year. Whether teas, furniture or houses, the Chinese are professional fake old. At the entrance of the city you will be asked to pay 80 RMB () (about 8 euros, the average price for two night hotel) in order to enter the city as "preservation of the ancient city of Lijiang ". This will include funding the beautiful flat screen touch the state has installed a can around the streets of the old town (but built in wood furniture, it would still not like Dresden lost its title of World Heritage of Unesco), or the flat screens, smaller sizes installed in the majority of urinals in the city. Note that if you do not pay the entry is not serious, you will add it just automatically note your inn once the latter reserved.

• 1.Streets and shops of old Lijiang
• 4.. Ieille Naxi woman in front of a flat screen installed by the city

Do not be fooled by against the appearance of a small town or what is meant by old town in Europe, we are here in China and Lijiang it is possible to walk and get lost for hours in the immense maze of the city ... So you will for your money. Depending on your taste you can sit down to one of the countless restaurant in town with typical map and local scenery, you take a picture next to an old warrior in traditional dress, or watch the Naxi grandmas (paid by the city) dance on the market place in traditional dress. Needless to run too much to find something to eat, where to sleep or have a drink, the vast majority of homes have been converted, redeemed or built from scratch to become a restaurant, inn or souvenir shop. For the main attraction of Lijiang is still the shoping.

puerh, new fashionable product to bring his weekend in Lijiang

The central place far into the cities and streets are a succession of shops offering tourists who agglutination true and false regional products. So far the products of choice seemed to be the (false) jade, including bracelets and figurines, the (fake) money, which we made jewelry of all kinds are sculpted, fake antiques portrait of Mao, crafts Wood, the local textile (which must often happen Shen Zhen), and medicinal plants of the mountain, we suddenly flourished the past two years a multitude of stores puerh! Puerh seems that it has become fashionable product for the tourist visiting Lijiang. While this may seem quite logical, it is a product of Yunnan, so relatively local (although Lijiang is a bit too far north and it produces virtually no tea in the region), but then to sell to tos street corner, how can one say it is as if in going to a tourist-typical French village say random Lourmarin, it was discovered that one quarter of the stalls had suddenly become wine merchants and everywhere the horizon that could be seen as bottles of table wine (produced more at the other end of France). I must say that Lijiang is a bit like a Christmas market, everybody sells the same thing can delight the visitor. These new tea shops do not sell btw often as tea, and so are everywhere tea, jade and other products for tourism.

• 1.Puerh 1 euro sold to a shop in Lijiang
• 2.puerh shop in Lijiang
• 3.Shop Lijiang, in the foreground and jade jewelry wood in the background puerh (Pu Er tea) cakes
• 4.puerh shop in Lijiang

If in all this the quality was that you could have something captivating:in the mountains, a mecca puerh (Pu Er tea) background fairy village where we would spend a few days discovering seek advice and enjoy some good cakes between two typical restaurant. But unfortunately this is not the case, the basic puerh (Pu Er tea) just replaced the fake silver, it's just a typical new product easy addressing a public non-connoisseur priori. So do not expect to find any interesting Lijiang cake ... What is best is probably the classics, DaYi (Menghai Tea Factroy) 7542 and 7572 that everyone sells more to the reputation and renown of the brand. Besides that a multitude patties producers unknown to the battalion which offer the very low end to mid-range four times for nothing, the price usually displayed oscillating between 1 euro and the wafer 10 Euros 4 patties. Overall more than fermented puerh (Pu Er tea) raw puerh, bottom fermented puerh (Pu Er tea) range being cheaper and more drinkable than its gross, and more accessible to foreign Palace counterpart. Many "fake" also exploiting a particular household name, as this cake false Banzhang (fermentée!!) To 2.5 euros I tasted at one of those tourist trap. Again we do not change a recipe that works, was written before "Silver 99.9%" of the plated copper bracelet, now we write Banzhang on Tai-Sun Menghai or Simao.

• 1.Tea Shop in Lijiang
• 2.Shop Lijiang, left wooden handicrafts, right patties puerh
• 3.False Banzhang be sold everywhere in Lijiang shops
• 4.shop selling, among other puerh

The rapid emergence and large cakes puerh (Pu Er tea) in the landscape of Lijiang is not entirely coincidental. This indicates firstly clearly the growth of Fame puerh (Pu Er tea) on Chinese territory, becoming a product research and tourists. This is not so new, there were already in the shop cakes tourists airports Yunnan but had never taken this magnitude. Looking out against the thing on the other side puerh (Pu Er tea) remains the same a regional product, which we know exists but a cake on his journey is returned in Yunnan. Note also the apparent lack of knowledge of the average Chinese face puerh. To see the poor quality of teas or clear falsification of information advertised on their packaging can be seen that if the will and reputation of puerh, driven by the market, in recent years China and traveled the world, it is not (yet) accompanied by a better understanding or knowledge of the product. Faced with this, and as it often happens with the South American wine, the power of the brand as a guarantee of quality:The tourists who want quality then buys DaYi because China is a highly respected brand. Although the puerh (Pu Er tea) and culture reminded on many points that we know in France with wine, the functioning of the market, including puerh (Pu Er tea) the importance of brand recall in effect over the American position.
Finally, if invasion patties on Disneyland Lijiang tends to make me smile, the new large market massive public puerh (Pu Er tea) bottom line denotes that would tend to make me cringe. Many rejoiced indeed violent fall in prices in 2008 and expected it produces a cleansing of the market, taking advantage of rising prices in recent years began to fumble more bad products:a return to quality after so many years of abuse on consumer marketing. But we are here in China, it is not an economic crash like the one suffered by the puerh (Pu Er tea) in 2008 that seriously shake anything and it seems that the puerh (Pu Er tea) low radius, forgery and intensive cultivation boosted to chemical fertilizers have yet bright future ...