Guangzhou Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market Park

This guide to the Fangcun Tea Wholesale Market Park in Guangzhou opens with a question: how does a brick of pressed tea worth tens of thousands of yuan lose nearly all its value in a single day. It walks the aisles of China's largest pu-erh trading hub, past warehouses built to age tea for years or decades, and traces how traders shifted from selling leaves to selling paper certificates called cargo notes. Look up as you walk and count the towers of wrapped tea cakes stacked floor to ceiling in these climate-controlled rooms.