Jingpo

Tea

竹筒腌茶 zhútǒng yānchá — tea as food: fresh leaves are boiled or steamed until soft, kneaded on a bamboo mat, packed into a thick bamboo joint and tamped down with a wooden pestle layer by layer, the opening is stoppered with a bamboo leaf, the joint is turned upside down to drain water, and after two days it is sealed with ash clay; twenty to thirty days later the leaves turn yellow, the joint is split open, the tea is wilted and stored in a pot under sesame oil, and eaten as a snack or fried with garlic. The simple pickled version uses salt and pepper, three months during the rainy season. The drink — 鲜竹筒茶 xiān zhútǒngchá: spring water in a fresh bamboo joint as thick as a bowl boils on a tripod over the fire, and tea is thrown straight in. Dehong.

Crown growth

A tea column knocked out of a bamboo joint: the mass stands atop a crown CONSTRICTED in the middle — two swollen bulges, the upper slightly wider than the lower, with a tight waist between them bearing a dark impression of a bamboo node. Along the lower bulge the mass has cracked and spread into short edges of compacted leaf, the surface dark olive, matte, with a sooty smoke mark. At 6 mm this is an hourglass: exactly one waist in the middle of the silhouette. It differs from the Dai in that the latter is a straight column of constant width with a cut-off top and a spiral seam, while here the width changes twice; from the Tajiks in that there two unequal bubbles are fused side by side on a slanted axis without a waist, while here two bulges of the same order sit on a common vertical with a tight waist between them.

Headwear

圆筒形头巾 yuántǒngxíng tóujīn — headwear of a middle-aged or young Jingpo man: gauze cotton cloth in a red-and-blue check, rolled into an even tube with no brim and no fold, the crown open. No slit is cut: the tea column stands in the open top of the tube, and the last wrap of cloth is caught with a loop exactly at the waist of the growth — the cloth settles into the waist, gripping it in a ring, and never lies over the growth.

Outline at 6 mm. Tube: a short even cylinder with no brim and no fold, top open. The Achang tower is a flared trumpet twice as tall with a flat top.

Clothing

Short dark jacket, knee-length trousers, shoulder bag with a red stripe, belt woven from rattan rings.

Palette

Red-and-blue check of the headwear, straw bamboo, dark olive tea mass, gray ash clay coating.