The descendants of Chiang Kai-shek's army who survived first by cultivating opium, have turned their attention to growing a less toxic crop. Uncle Soo, sporting a black San Francisco Giants baseball cap and a frayed US Army field jacket, sat on a wooden stump at his neatly arranged desk in his tiny shop in Mae Salong. A classic Chinese herbal doctor, his pharmacy of plants, herbs and roots lay on the concrete floor in plastic bags.

He carefully poured me a cup of green tea, as puffs of white smoke spiralled around his head from the thin, brown cheroot dangling from his lip. Yellowed pages of old newspapers were glued to the interior walls of the shop, covering open spaces between the wooden planks. 

“Green tea was one of the first medicines in Old China,” he said. “Opium was a medicine too, to heal pain.”

When talking about tea or opium, Uncle Soo, 91 years old, is an expert. He served as a herbal doctor in the Kuomintang’s 39th Regiment, shortly after it retreated into Burma from Yunnan in 1949, following Chiang Kai-shek’s defeat and exile to Taiwan.

The battle-hardened Chinese army carved out a fiefdom in the rugged mountains of Myanmar's Shan State near the Thai border. The regiment soon cornered a large portion of the poppy growing trade, and for years, the ex-soldiers smuggled refined heroin through Thailand and Laos to Taiwan.

Led by General Maa Tuan, the army moved its base to Mae Salong, Thailand, about 35 km from the Burmese border in 1961. Known as Jeen Haw or “Galloping Chinese” for their skills with pack animals, the tough soldiers and their families created a Chinese way of life along a 1,000 metre mountain ridgeback. With more than two metres of rain a year, humid days and cool nights, the mountains provided a perfect location for tea plantations.

Astonishingly, by the 1980s, the ex-army’s involvement in heroin had subsided and almost all the Chinese in Mae Salang cultivated tea plants, which now cover the hills surrounding the town.

Ma Salang, with a population of about 10,000, zig-zags upward along a mountain ridge that drops off sharply on the southern side. Almost all the shops have something to do with tea: tasting it, selling it or promoting it. Some are elaborate, open-air structures devoted to a sort of Zen-like presentation of tea. Others are tiny, hole-in-the-wall stalls with a single two-person counter.

Besides tea, several beautiful examples of Thai temple architecture can be seen on the winding roads above Mae Salang, each with spectacular views of the mountains falling off into Burma. Also, there’s a museum-mausoleum devoted to General Taun, the guiding spirit who led the army through the wild days of being pursued as outlaws to their present day life of farmer-businessmen. But, alas, only a few soldiers, such as Uncle Soo, still survive.

Fortified with the lingering taste of Uncle Soo’s green tea on my tongue, I walked out to the main road in search of the real reason I had come to Mae Salang. My goal was to taste the town’s speciality – fine Oolong tea. I wanted to learn how to appreciate fine tea and Mae Salang was the place to do it.

Many different tea varieties are grown. One of the favourites is Oolong, or Camellia Seninsis. Seedling plants were brought over from Taiwan decades ago. Connoisseurs say Oolong tea compares to a fine wine.

The tea plants of Mae Salang produce some of the finest tea in Asia, and the village is now a remote tourist attraction for hardy travellers.

During my first night in town, I dropped in at a karaoke bar where three TVs play Chinese sitcoms from mainland China and Hong Kong. The next morning, I walked down the main road where Chinese characters on shop signs outnumbered Thai script and more Chinese was spoken than Thai. With the Lisu and Mong villagers filling up the town’s market, the village felt more like China than Thailand. A few cherry trees still held the remnants of pink blossoms.

Later, I spotted a non-descript tea vendor’s shop with only two wood tables and a few squat stools. A picture of the Great Wall of China adorned one wall. An elderly lady, speaking in broken English, said her name was Madame Ming, and she gave me a short course in tea tasting.

“What kind of tea do you like?” she asked.

“Oolong.”

“There are many varieties,” she said, smiling. "What kind?”

“Please serve the one you like best,” I said. She picked up a plastic bag bulging with tea buds.

"Oolong has been used as a medicine for thousands of years," she said, selecting three or four small buds. “Tea stimulates blood circulation and calms the mind.”

In scientific terms, it's all about polyphones and catechins, organic chemicals found in all tea leaves. The trick is how much oxidation is allowed in the processing. The processing of Oolong tea is somewhere between green and black teas, giving it a distinctive fruity taste all its own. It’s one of the preferred teas of connoisseurs.

Wordlessly, Madame Ming prepared a pot of tea, pouring hot water into a small, unglazed, clay teapot – which improves with age and brings out the best tea flavours. After a few minutes of seeping, she poured the tea through a fine strainer into two smaller clay cups. She picked one up and motioned for me to inhale the aroma. I held the tiny cup with the fingers of both hands.

It was Dong Fang Mei Ren, or Oriental Beauty Oolong tea, which she saved for special occasions. The colour of Oriental Beauty is one of its gifts. Imagine the clearest water. Then imagine that you prick your right finger with a needle. A trickle of dark, red blood rises. Then you place your finger in the clear water, and stir. The water suddenly glows light red, the colour of Oriental Beauty tea.

With the first sip, it was as if I had never tasted tea before. It cast a hint of honey, peaches and oranges on my tongue.

I searched out the flavours again with each sip, smiling at Madame Ming in appreciation. The tea’s shimmering colour, smell and flavour gave subtle pleasures. Each demanded attention, or they passed unnoticed. It was another lesson about how to live and how to travel.

FACTS ON THAI TEA

Ingredients in Thai tea or cha-yen vary from maker to maker but its base is usually made from cut black tea leaves grown in Asia. Its distinct aroma and flavour is derived from star anise – which is slightly more bitter than regular anise seed and has a floral undertone– orange blossom water and crushed tamarind or red and yellow food colouring. The tea is almost always served pre-sweetened and is said to balance the spice of local food.