From the posts here , and anywhere else , I can see that Yunnan is not that popular ( or just people are not sharing unless T-biz posting on their blog as part of the marketing ....like me ;-D ) .
I understand that Taiwan or Sri Lanka are more appealing as the tea excursion can be combined with beach so that makes it like Sun Sea Tea travel , therefore more justifying expenses.
I believe also the one of the reason is that drinking fresh made oolongs or FFDJ is more enjoyable than some bitter astringent fresh sheng
I'm also aware of the fact that most of the people doing tea sourcing trip , they want to do it independently and preferably with some local person who helps for free or just for a little something. Before covid, every spring someone would come to us having a tea with tons of questions how, where , when..etc.
then took a journey to Xbanna on their own. There are some T- tours for locals but they are like bus of 30 people and visiting places like Jingmai , LBZ , LME etc. Last trip to LBZ we met like 10 big buses full of people wearing same T-shirts and hats ( that's how they dress up their tourists so be sure nobody will be lost
Our idea is to bring much smaller groups ( up to 4 people ) and to less known , touristic places ( more authentic ) . I'd probably just include LBZ for showing that bizzare as an example of puerh hype
Maybe visiting some small tea factory as an educational introduction to processing and pressing.
At this stage it is just in the head and talk so I'm putting up together some numbers to see if it's feasible or just not worth the hassle.
My questions :
1) if you done such a tour , where, when and how many days?
2) How much you paid ( not flight tickets incl. ) and what was included ( like hotel, food , local transport )?
3) what was the program ( like what did u see, visit ) ?
4) what would you add to that / improve ?
5) did you buy any tea ( if convenient to say , what tea for what price range ) ?
6) was it worth it or waste of time and money?
Many Chinese travel agencies ( not only T-tours ) push their tourists to purchase stuff on places they visit. Some videos leaking on Tick Tock like when tour guide in the bus saying that everyone has to spend like 2-3k CNY . I certainly don't want to be doing this concept but knowing what people generally are willing to spend for tea will help me to think whcih places suitable to visit to increase possiblity of the purchase ( not for my profit but the farmers who we visit ). I don't want to take any cuts from sales neither want to promise to farmers having some business if we visit.
If not convenient to share such an information publicly , please do not hesitate and PM.
