We went to see Mr Ye's Taiping Houkui tea garden last month, out in the remote mountains we found tea thriving in an incredible natural environment.
The tea mountain where the family's tea garden is located can only be reached by boat. After docking at a shaded cove, we hiked into a fold in the steep river bank, the path rising steadily as we traced our way alongside a brook for an hour. We trod through bamboo and alongside abandoned tea estates from imperial era China. An extremely hot, humid day, the air became so heavy you could feel the heat in your lungs with every breath.
The walk was fun. The path was not maintained, only tea farmers are using it today, so we followed behind Mr Ye as he cleared the path ahead with a sickle. Branches and brambles shot across the walk, they grow so fast in Summer.
As we went deeper and deeper, the temperature became a lot cooler. Around the stream running beside us, insects were crawling and flying everywhere, some we'd never seen before. Mr Ye was telling us the histories of this place, the county, the mountains, the lake, the tea gardens, and his father and grandfather that he inherited the skills from...
Suddenly, he turned around: Here is the tea garden! The tea trees sat perched on a steep hill that towered to our left, the sun beating down as the path opened up. On our right, dense forest and bamboo groves swayed in the wind. The sound of the bamboo was like the ocean.
The tea garden is without a doubt the most difficult to maintain that I've ever seen. To even reach the spots to pick tea leaves requires agility and perseverance; to find the most sought-after pickings a keen eye and years of experience. Mr Ye comes here more than 80 times a year, almost every other day from spring to autumn.
Experiences like this are impossible to convey fully in words, photos or videos. The tradition of the planters, the history of the garden and the family, the incredible journey was topped off by sitting with Mr Ye and drinking his unique tea down by the river at the end of a perfect day.
Though we weren't able to go during Spring, the season for picking and processing, seeing the tea garden in the blazing heat of mid-summer gave us an unparalleled insight into the hard work and unceasing care that the tea farmers have to put in to produce such exceptional tea. We surely found the best way to truly appreciate great tea: put on some good shoes, climb mountains, cross rivers, and see the tea at the origin.
-the end-
written by Fang yaoyao
Comments