Hangzhou is ostensibly one of the most important cities in historical, as well as modern day, China, an icon of education, arts, literature, beauty in all aspects. Here at the Pagoda of Six Harmonies, built around the 900s AD, it was time for the spectacular arrays of peonies to bloom. And so, if a tea is good enough for the people as elite as Hangzhou, then it is too good for everyone else. And that’s the status Dragonwell tea will always maintain.
Behind a little known temple in the back of the mountain is a running stream from the same source as the Tiger Run Spring, the famous sweet tasting water that not only nourishes the tea plants, but brews an unparalleled cup of Dragonwell. This secret water source is where all the tea masters like Mr. Dai go to get water to brew their own tea. Free from tourists, he said. So I can not disclose its coordinates either- but I did fill a bottle to bring back to analyze what the mineral content is. Hopefully soon, we can all use the right water for each tea!
Sitting outside in a pleasant, not too mosquito filled night, with Mr. Yan and his grandnephew. I remember young Mr. Wang, his apprentice, from nearly 13 years ago. Now he owns a relatively big tea business, married with two kids, but is just as obsessed and serious about tea as he was as a young apprentice. Lack of lighting and being in the middle of the night is not daunting- he needed to analyze the batches of dark roasted oolongs for whether 30 hours roasting was yet enough- by iPhone light! Then, it was time to bag and seal some teas, and I was instructed, how to feel the correct temperature warmth in the tea out of the roaster, to seal it so that the moisture absorbed from the air was just the right amount. So much to forever learn.
What a scene, not to have ever taken place at this farm. I requested about 10 samples of various oolongs and each with a different fire level, and cold steeped for 8 hours before I arrived. Attempting to pick out the best oolong for cold brew. People in China do not really drink cold tea, so cold brew tea is unheard of. But they were kind enough to humor me and calibrate for the version I want. Yellow Gold had the best fragrance even as a cold brew, but the long roasted Tieguanyin had the sweetest water. To be continued. They are roasting a couple more batches to steep over night.
At Xiping, home of Tieguanyin. The village was so much quieter, and at peak harvest season, hardly anyone was around. The reason is that many tea bushes died from the recent subzero temperature, and recent decline in demand with over production caused prices to not rise. And since most teas have more than doubled in price in recent years, Tieguanyin and surrounding oolongs like Yellow Gold, Hairy Crab, and Benshan have all fallen out of favor with the producers.
Long train rides from farm to farm. Luckily the trains are so fast nowadays, saving me a lot of time. Someone in the U.S. thought I was on vacation in China. I don’t believe I have ever taken a vacation there. It’s either a mountain climbing pilgrimage, tea buying, or other business. Vacation means de-stress usually, not ‘multiply the stress’. China, with its overpopulation, jostling, chaotic systems, possibility of being cheated, not to mention the random spitting that one must dodge with lightening verve, is simply not a relaxing situation. I do enjoy talking to all the farmers, tea producers, and all kinds of business people I meet, and exchange perspectives, as entertainment. They are much more open minded in some ways and wanting to hear, for example, just how bad this coming election is going to be. Isn’t Hillary going to win, they asked? Putin is not easy to deal with, he is the kingpin of thugs, they said. I laughed. What about Xi Jin Ping? Just a tough guy, huh? They seem to be slowly waking up to the dangers and failures of the patriarchal, Confucian system. No one has any solutions, but acknowledging the mess is a good step. If you are 1.3 billion people trapped inside a wall, what do you do? The Chinese are conditioned not to resist authority, they lamented. Curious. I didn’t start the conversation, and promised myself not to be an instigator this time either. Here in this photo, someone else’s thermos of tea, a typical scene of low end, repeatedly steeped, but at least, whole leaf tea, to be drunk all day long.