Arrive into Wuyi mountain and our fabulous hotel is right next to an ancient Mazu Taoist temple. Here, we ask for some protection.
May our tea adventures run smoothly from here on out. My luggage is currently stuck in Guangzhou some place, but no problem, it could have been me and not the luggage? Everyday is a good day. In this whisper quiet haven at the foothills of Wuyishan, I am counting my blessings, one wisp of cloud at a time.
Customers always ask: what is your favorite tea? The diplomatic answer is, all the teas I curate for the shop! You don’t claim favorites with your kids, do you?
That is not the case in reality. I rarely drink Darjeeling or Jasmine teas, never Ceylon or Assam, and occasionally other green teas. Oolong teas have enough range and depth and variety to provide all the self medication needed- that is, as far as mood adjustments, boosting energy, converting a doldrums day to a bright and cheerful one….etc.
Didn’t make it back to Taiwan at the end of May and early June for the spring oolong harvest, regretfully. Taiwan Oolongs have limitless attraction as being the most intoxicating tea there is, offering the ‘high mountain high’. This season though, the King’s Competition Grade Tieguanyin almost stole that title from the High Mountain oolong. It would fill the room with it’s fragrance- but there wasn’t enough to go around. Competition grade teas are invariably scarce, much like the coveted Dayuling. If one stumbles into good pricing and plentiful stock of Dayuling at any tea merchant- it’s guaranteed to be fake. No such thing as plentiful, or cheap, real Dayuling. Ours this year was from 2500 meters, and completely spoken for.
So woefully, my favorite teas are all taken…..
Location, location, location. Grown on narrow ledges, Mr. Lin’s farm on the mountain top is pristinely full of organic matter, like bamboo husks, weeds to be hand pulled, wild flowers. The wind put through is quite strong, a little known locational advantage against bugs. Mountain streams trickle down. Iron rich soil is another natural environmental factor for his superior crops. Still too young for harvest, the leaflets will need to grow another 2 weeks.
Shang Dong peak, Mr. Lin’s bio organic farm growing Golden Guanyin and other varietals
There’s a lot of idle time at the farm when it’s not peak season yet. Here at Anxi, peak harvest and production season won’t really start for another 2 weeks, waiting for the leaves to grow a bit more mature. There’s a lot of standing around， sitting and drinking tea and smoking and shooting the breeze. Often neighbors will drop in and sit and not say a word. Mr. Lin, formerly the village doctor, is attempting to do the all natural farm, including using no chemical fertilizers. His Red Guanyin and Golden Robe saw their first appearance in the US with us last year. This year, we hope to ask him to tweak and custom make those teas for us a bit， adjusting fire levels and depth.
Here at 赤石 Red Rock Village where a Tieguanyin was first discovered by a fellow villager in the early 1700s， every family is related and everyone makes tea.
Here you’ve got everything! High elevation! Misty cool air! Wild trees and flowers! Top of the mountain far from pollution! EU, USDA, JAS Organic certified tea garden with hand pulled weeding! Beautiful young red-heart varietal Tieguanyin bushes! There’s more: Warbling birds! Wild boars! Huge snakes! Water jetting out between mountain rocks! Is that good enough for the Western Market? They asked. Nope, I said. Your prices need to be below $15 p/lb. Mr Lin : ‘but that’s how much we pay our tea pickers! We need to charge 5 times that amount!’ here’s how it works: For it to get to the West, first you have to sell it to Germany import monopoly. They will then export to the other countries like France, or the US. Then, your importer gets a cut, then your distributor, then your retailer, before it gets to you, the consumer. By then it’s 5-6 times its original cost. As a result, only low mountain, polluted flat areas with machine cut teas, can make it out West as ‘organic’. No problem, said Mr Lin. The highrollers in China now want good taste AND health, they can afford the good stuff, no need to export.