The map that became a scarf
During a 2024 sourcing trip to Yiwu, Michael Zhan spent three days walking the old-tree routes with village elders. Between cups of Má Hēi and Wān Gōng pu-erh, he sketched a crude map — not for navigation, but to remember the order of the villages and the shape of the hills. That notebook page stayed tucked in his field bag until earlier this year, when our team began exploring scarves as a new way to carry tea’s geography.
Michael worked with a small printmaker in Jinghong, just outside Xishuangbanna, to translate his sketch into a silkscreen. The map traces the classic Yiwu circuit: eight villages — from Gaoshan to Yibi — each marked with a hand-drawn tea character. Elevation contours are rendered in sepia, a nod to the old topographic maps used by the tea bureau in the 1950s. The background is a muted indigo, the same shade as the sky above Yiwu’s ancient tree canopy at dawn.
The silk itself is 12-momme twill, chosen for a crisp drape and the way it holds the screen-printing ink without bleeding. The hand-rolled hem is done by a group of women in the same workshop — each scarf takes about 45 minutes to roll and stitch. The natural dye fixative is a local recipe: a wash of tea seed oil and lime that sets the colors and gives the silk its faint, earthy scent.
Every scarf is numbered and comes with a card listing the eight villages in Chinese, pinyin, and a short orientation — a wearable piece of field knowledge, not just a souvenir.