A Tealover's Dream Tour

From April 12 to 23 I went on a tealover’s dream vacation.  For 12 full days I met tea pickers in teafields filling their baskets with fresh tealeaves, watched tea masters using a seasoned eye to process fragrant baskets of wilted leaves in hot woks, sat in front of tea servers who artfully prepared aromatic infusions of green teas, white teas, yellow tea, rock wulong teas, or black teas which we sipped out of tiny white cups, while listening to stories and learning about a seemingly endless variety of teas. 

So, where was I?  I was in China, in three provinces just west and south of Shanghai famous for their teas:  Zhejiang Province, Anhui Province, and northern Fujian Province.  (See map.)   For those who want more detail, some of the places (in this order) we went were Changxing, Yixing, Gu Zhu, Anji, Mogan Shan, Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) City, Wuyi Mountain, Nanping, and Hangzhou.

How did I happen to go?  Looking for a tea tour to China, I saw online that Seven Cups Tea (based in Tucson, Arizona) was offering a tea tour in China during the prime tea picking month of April.  Although I did not know it at the time, they have been strong promoters and supporters of independent, organic, fair trade tea farms that specialize in handcrafted teas (hand picked, mostly hand processed) in China.  We were privileged to experience some of the finest teas in China.

 Who was on the tour?  Besides the two tour leaders, there were nine of us and I was by far the tea novice in the group.  (See photo from left to right.)  Dan is a Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner and teacher from Phoenix, Krissy and her mother Linda are planning to open a teashop in California, Seb and Zoe are professional teatasters from the UK

Chris grew up a block from Seven Cups tasting and loving tea, Lynn has a teashop in Maine specializing in Chinese tea, and Eric used to run a teahouse for Seven Cups in an arboretum in Tucson.  

Zhuping Hodge (far left) was our amazing guide.  She planned the entire itinerary with tea masters she has spent years developing a relationship with, made all the arrangements for our lodging in 4-star hotels, ordered all our multi-course—up to 15 or so courses--meals, whether in restaurants or arranged through farm families, and saw to our every need while sharing all her tea knowledge with us. 

Andrew was Zhuping’s assistant on the tour who has been at Seven Cups for 9 years and was fluent in Chinese.  He made everything--from trip preparations, to tea master interviews, to tour logistics and shopping--go so much more smoothly.

My next post will explain how Purple Bamboo Shoot and White Peony teas are processed!