Yunnan, up close — the place behind the products
This page is for looking, not for buying. Nothing here is for sale — it is simply the landscape and the people our products come from.
Where we are: Wenshan, on the 23rd parallel
Photographs on this page are free-licence images (Wikimedia / Wikipedia) used to illustrate the region — see photo credits. Our own farm photography appears on the product pages.
Our home is Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture (文山壮族苗族自治州), in the far south-east of Yunnan. The prefecture borders Vietnam to the south and Guangxi to the east, and it sits on the 23°N “golden belt” where long sunshine, wide day-night temperature swings, clean mountain soil and a frost-free winter give this corner of Yunnan its unusual concentration of good things to eat (and drink, and wear).
Wenshan is karst country: limestone peaks, sinkholes, cave systems and rivers running between them. In the same prefecture you will find Yanshan and its early-season blueberry belt, Malipo and its century-old tea trees, Maguan and its tsaoko, and the border town of Laoshan — the mountain that gives its name to Malipo’s tea and, for many Chinese families, to a whole chapter of modern history.
The people: Zhuang, Miao, Yao and more
Wenshan has been home to many ethnic groups for generations — Zhuang (壮族), Miao (苗族), Yao (瑶族), Yi (彝族), Dai (傣族) and others — and their cultures have grown side by side rather than one swallowing another. That shows up in the landscape itself: a hillside can hold Miao terraces on one flank, Zhuang rice on the other, and a Yao village in the next valley.
The same communities grow and harvest the ginger, star anise, tsaoko, morels and blueberries that we dry, sort and export. When we say “direct from the farm”, this is what we mean.
Embroidery — needlework as a record of a people
Embroidery is the most visible of these traditions. Miao embroidery (苗绣) is worked with silk and cotton threads in patterns that are often read as a record of the group’s history — migrations, rivers, mountains, ancestors — rather than as decoration alone. Zhuang brocade (壮锦) is woven on looms with geometric motifs in strong reds, blues and greens. Yao women embroider and dye with indigo, using wax-resist and pleating techniques that have been passed down mother to daughter.
These are made by hand, by women who farm the same hillsides we source from. They are not our products and we do not sell them — but they are part of the reason Yunnan produce tastes and looks the way it does, and we are happy to show them.
Agate and stone
The region is also known for natural agate, formed in the volcanic and limestone geology around the Wenshan border country: smooth in texture, rich in colour, and shaped over geological time rather than by any hand. Like the embroidery, it is here on this page simply because it belongs to the place.
Mountains, water and what grows between them
Drive out of a Wenshan valley at dawn and you cross layers of climate in an hour: misted paddy at the bottom, tea trees on the mid-slopes, ginger and tsaoko on the shaded hillsides, blueberry rows on the sunlit terraces above. That vertical range — from about 900 m up to more than 2,500 m — is why Yunnan can put fresh blueberries on the market in every month of the year while other Chinese regions manage a few weeks.
It is also why our prices work: the crop is grown close to where it is dried, sorted and packed, and shipped out from the same border prefecture.
Looking for something to buy? Our products are on the shop page, and wholesale terms are on the wholesale page. This page is here to show you where they come from.