Yiyang (益阳) is a prefecture-level city in northern Hunan where the Zi River finishes its run into Dongting Lake. Founded as a Qin county in 221 BC, it has kept the same name for over two thousand years, a rarity in China. The lake plain grows rice, ramie and bamboo — the city styles itself a land of fish and rice, first in Hunan for moso bamboo and tea — while Anhua County in its western hills presses the dark tea bricks once sent down mountain roads by caravan. Huaguxi, the local flower-drum opera, keeps the county towns singing.
Anhua County presses dark tea into bricks and logs that were built to travel. The leaf, the road it took and the county that still makes it are the three stages of a mountain product's long journey to market, from caravan to domestic table.