普洱市

Why this place

Pu'er is the tea city of Yunnan, and the mountain forests here hold ancient tea trees hundreds of years old. The fermented tea that bears the city's name is traded and aged like wine, and the tea mountains are a genuine pilgrimage for anyone who cares about tea.

What to see

• The Jingmai Mountain tea forests — UNESCO-listed ancient tea gardens with trees centuries old
• The Pu'er tea museum and the old tea-horse road staging posts
• The Dai and Wa villages of the tea mountains
• The Xishuangbanna border country to the south

What to eat

• Pu'er tea, in all its aged forms
• Dai and Wa cooking: sour and grilled, with banana-leaf steaming and the local 'zhutong' rice

Best time

March–April for the spring tea harvest; October–November otherwise