Issue 03

Vietnam has been making Snow Shan for centuries. It has not needed anyone's permission to be extraordinary.

Issue 03 travels to the highlands where this ancient white tea is still crafted by hand — quietly, without fanfare — and finds a tradition strong enough to hold its own against anything produced across the border.

Fuchsia Dunlop, food researcher and one of the most perceptive Western writers on Chinese culture, talks about tea in the context of eating — how it sits on the table, what it does to a meal, what it means in a land where the two have never really been separated.

We look at how Europe drinks tea, and why. Then we sail back into history to reckon with the Opium Wars — the violent commercial logic that shaped the modern tea trade and the relationship between Britain and China.

In Chengdu, the old teahouses are still open. We find out how they got there, and how they are holding their place in a city moving fast in every other direction.

We drink our way through the Russian Revolution, wander through Bangkok, and follow the road to the Shire Highlands of Malawi.