The Hunan Tea Made for a Long Journey
Some teas are made to be opened quickly. Anhua dark tea carries the shape of distance. It is a post-fermented tea from Anhua County, in Hunan — and its most recognizable forms, the pressed
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Traditions
Customs still being practised, changed and passed on through food, festivals, families, craft and daily ritual — with people always present.
FEATURED STORY · Hunan
Why Is the Tiger the Heart of Xiang Embroidery?
The tiger is a memorable face of 湘绣 (Xiāng xiù), Hunan's embroidery tradition, because its makers learned to make fur seem to lift from silk. Look closely at the eye: many shades of thread c
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Four ways into Traditions.
Why Guan Yu Became a God
In a noodle shop in Chengdu, or the back room of a Hong Kong pawnshop, there is often a small red-faced man on a shelf above the till: long black beard, green robe, one hand resting on an up
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Why The Art of War Is About Winning Without Fighting
Step into almost any bookshop in China and you will find 孙子兵法， The Art of War, shelved in three places at once: with the classics, with the business books, and with the volumes that promise
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Why Su Dongpo Is the Poet You Can Eat
In restaurants across China, one name turns up on the menu more often than almost any other: 东坡， Dongpo. Dongpo pork. Dongpo elbow. Dongpo tofu, Dongpo cakes. Diners order them without think
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Why Tang Taizong Is Still Remembered as One of China’s Greatest Emperors
Why does a ruler from the seventh century still appear in conversations about good government? Tang Taizong is remembered for helping turn a new dynasty into a durable empire, but the part o
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What a Chinese Tea Set Tells You About the People at the Table
A Chinese tea set is not one fixed collection of objects. The vessels on a table change with the tea, the place and the people drinking it. What they share is a practical purpose: they shape
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Why Mooncakes Never Taste the Same From One Family to the Next
The first argument often begins before the box is open: sweet or savoury?
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Why People Climb High on the Double Ninth Festival
The custom sounds simple: on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, climb somewhere high.
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