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| Lonjing Tea |
It was two days before my departure from Shanghai, and it dawned on me that I had never visited Hangzhou reputed to be the most beautiful city in China and often called Heaven on Earth. Perusing tour options to Hangzhou, I saw that most of them included a boat tour of Hangzhou's iconic Westlake and afterwards, a tea plantation. Hangzhou is famed for the Lonjing or Dragon Well tea grown only there; this is a very special green tea, "the Tea of Emperors". Since the tours seemed to include a lot of wasted time, like transport in a car or bus, and after learning that the high speed train could get me there in under an hour, I decided to go on my own.
When you are in a country where you do not speak the language you get a written card from your hotel with the names and addresses of your destinations in the local language similar to the one in the photo. I had one for the Hangzhou boat docks and Meijiawu Tea Village in Hangzhou. It seemed fail-safe.
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Getting to Hangzhou was a piece of cake, even the short subway ride from the train station to the lake, which initially had intimidated me, turned out to be easy. One look at the Westlake assured me that Hangzhou would not fall short on its promise of being Heaven on Earth. Below are just a few shots showing why this place inspired poets for centuries.
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| Westlake Hangzhou, China |
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| Westlake, Hangzhou, China |
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| Westlake, Hangzhou, China |
Here I am soaking up the magnificence.
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| Me on boat tour of Westlake, Hangzhou China |
Boat tour accomplished, and ready for tea, I headed to the main street, armed with my card, to find a cab. My trouble was about to start. After being turned down by several cabs, I finally found one who agreed to take me to Meijiawu Tea Village, I had read the tea-growing area was away from Hangzhou's city center, but did not appreciate how far away. We seemed to be heading to the middle of nowhere and my own GPS was not working. The cab had put on his GPS, but seemed confused and eventually stopped to ask directions and left me off here.
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| Bamboo Path, Hangzhou China |
I love bamboo forests and, normally would have been ecstatic especially since this one led to an old and significant temple. But, I was on a mission. I showed my card to people in an office I came across, but no one knew anything about a Tea Village I started walking and looking around realized I was in the midst of incredibly beautiful tea terraces.
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| Tea Terraces, Hangzhou China |
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| Tea Terraces, Hangzhou China |
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| Country road with Tea Terraces, Hangzhou, China |
It was mid-afternoon in deep countryside, and I started to wonder how I was going to get out of there. Worst case scenario was me spending the night on the side of that road. But there were cars and an occasional bus passing. I didn't get too worried, but kept on moving figuring that I'd eventually get somewhere, wherever that was.
Shortly, I began to see buildings in the tea fields and a few people walking around, but not the crowds picking tea leaves that I assumed I would find. Once I walked into the terraces towards a building, but barking dogs told me this was not a great idea.
Within 15 minutes, I came to some sort of village; it had the feel of a resort area.
I went into one of the hotels and, again, showed my card with Meijiawu Tea Village. Not a glimmer of recognition in anyone's eyes.
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| Meijiawu Tea Village, Hangzhou China |
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| Main Street, Meijiawu Tea Village, Hangzhou China |
My fantasy of picking tea leaves and sampling teas soon gave way to an urgent search for a taxi; I did not want to end up spending the night, wherever I was. I was convinced a cab would pass by, and one did. In a last feeble effort, I showed my card to the cab driver and he asked in broken English if I wanted to drink tea. I laughed to myself and completely gave up my tea village quest. I asked the driver to take me back to the train station (I had a card for that place, too) and a short train ride later was back in Shanghai.
The Irony:
You may have noticed that the captions on my photos say Meijiawu Tea Village, the place I was trying to find. Ironically, I had gotten to the place I was searching for, but had absolutely no idea I was there.
After some careful research, I unearthed two facts. One was that the locals do not use the term Meijiawu Tea Village to refer to the place and two was that it was fall, off-season, and everything was more or less shut down. Picking season for Lonjing tea is early spring and that is when the place comes to life with tours and opportunities to pick teas. It was kind of like trying to go skiing in the summer. When I was first reading about the area, I should have dug deeper and gotten my facts straight.
But, I was left with a real curiosity about Longing Tea, reputed to be unique among green teas and became obsessed with finding some. That was no problem, because Shanghai
is loaded with tea shops and my hotel sent me to one nearby that carried quality teas and had a large selection of Longings, some of which sold for close to $100 per ounce.
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| Interior of tea shop, Shanghai China |
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| Teas, Tea Shop Shanghai China |
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| Lonjing Teas, Shanghai China (sell for close to $100 an ounce) |
The Takeaway:
My initial reaction to not finding the tea plantation was been frustration, but this evolved into a curiosity about Longing tea and tea production in general. I read several books on the topic and the lapsed into my long-time habit of drinking dark, earthy Indian Assam tea, the kind that is typically drunk mixed with milk. However, Longing tea is unique among green teas with its combination of flavor, vitamin C and antioxidants and I can highly recommend it.
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