When I reached the hostel, I washed the sticky layers of humidity off my face, and got out a napkin with an address written on it. “54 Longjing Village.” This was given to me as the address of some Dragonwell tea farmers. I wondered about the lack of a road name, but thought that even if I didn't find them, it would be a good chance to stretch my legs amid the tea field after a long plane ride.
The bus line ended in Longjing village, nestled between mountain peaks above Hangzhou, including the famous Lion's peak where in April of 2005 two ounces of the first picking of the spring sold for 17605 USD.[1] Beginning with the Qianlong emperor's declaration of Longjing tea as a tribute tea and continuing through Mao Zedong's famous love for Longjing tea and his visit to the village to pick leaves himself, a sense of legend pervades the leaves here. As the bus came to a stop, a woman sitting next to me asked me if I wanted to try some Longjing tea at her house. I told her I wasn't here to buy tea, but to visit someone. She didn't pursue the topic.
As I got off the bus, a group of about ten bored looking villagers sitting in the square suddenly stood up and picked up their bamboo baskets of tea. “Lonjing tea!” they yelled in halting English. “Come to drink Longjing tea.” I said again, I didn't come to buy any tea. Switching to Chinese again, they asked, “why did you come here?”
I had read about these people before arriving. Many travelers claimed that they could not get rid of the tea sellers until they bought a token amount. Not wanting to find myself with a canister of tea grown hundreds of miles away, then packaged and sold as Dragonwell Lion's peak tea to eager and curious tourists, I stretched the truth, replying “I have friends I am visiting.”
“Who?” I glanced at the napkin and read the name.
“Oh.” The villagers sat back down disappointed at a lost sale.
My anxiety over finding the right road was in vain. The village began at a government-constructed archway commemorating the nearly-holy tea and continuing down the only road. The bus line ended where the pavement did. From that point on, cobblestones lined the clean village. I looked for number fifty-four, realizing that none of the structure looked like companies. Instead the village was made up of peasant houses, some with signs proclaiming “Dragonwell tea for sale.” I walked for about twenty minutes until the cobblestone too ended and a dirt road continued. As the road began to wind up to the mountain peak a watermelon peddler and her kids were sitting in the shade of a Fir tree.
“Watermelon! Do you need some watermelon?” While the heat-soaked air indeed tempted me to eat a little watermelon, I instead asked,
“Do you know where the Li family lives?” They pointed to a house perched on top of a small hill in the valley, covered with low to the ground lines of tea bushes. Bright green leaves curled into little needle shapes contrasted with the large dark older leaves. These buds are the lifeblood of Longjing Village, worth as in the case of the 2005 auction, more than their dried weight in gold.[2]
I walked timidly up the dirt path of the house, seeing not even the customary “Tea for Sale” sign. Nobody was sitting on the stone courtyard outside the house, so I poked my head in the door and asked if Mrs Li was home. While the villagers of Laoshan were always curious at my white skin and curly hair, the man sitting in his living room didn't blink an eye at it. “Please sit. Drink some tea.” He pulled out a wooden chair and brought a thick tall tumbler glass with those precious Longjing leaves at the bottom, pouring steaming water from a three foot-tall pink thermos. He disappeared for three minutes, then walked through the living room into the outdoor kitchen. “She will be right with you.” He looked at my full cup and laughed, “You can drink it now.”
A short muscular woman came in with her collage-aged daughter. The daughter greeted me in broken English, but hearing Mandarin in response, relievedly shifted language. The mother frowned, “You should practice your English with the foreigner.”
“Mom, that is embarrassing. I can't speak English.” The mother turned and addressed me,
“This is my daughter, we are sending her to college, but she is home from the city for vacation. How do you like the tea?”
“It is very different from the Laoshan green tea I am used to. I need to think more about the flavor. It is interesting.” Honestly, the mystique around Longjing village created expectations too high not to be broken when trying the most famous tea in China. I explained that I had actually come to learn more about tea culture in Hangzhou. The woman told me to wait, returning with a second chipped glass of tea with the tea leaves swirling around as the steeped.
“See the way the leaves unfold and float vertically like that? This is our best tea.” I smelled it and was immediately taken back by the strong mineral-earthy smell. The taste was a world away from my first cup. “The first cup is what we drink every day. I want you to try the second one so that you know true Longjing tea.
The woman and her family spend a frantic two months in the spring picking their plot of leaves on Lion's peak, working from before dawn until long after dusk every day. They say that the difference of one day on when leaves are picked changes not only the flavor but also their price significantly. A March 28th cup of tea costs much more than an April 2nd tea.
In the cobblestone courtyard in front of their house, the family lays out the tea leaves to wilt and then shapes and sears them in a large wok under low constant heat. Their hands are calloused from pressing the leaves directly against the hot metal for a perfect shape and appropriately roasted flavor. Even the daughter returns from collage to expedite the time-sensitive tea-making process. After the tea is picked and dried, it is not harvested again all summer. The family explained that the leaves absorb too much sunlight in the summer to have the distinctive sweet and earthy taste that Longjing promises.
At my visit in July, the streets were quiet, children played on house steps and old men crouched around tables talking to the constant click of Mah Jong tiles. Women were gathered together between houses chatting with each other. I asked the mother of the family, “Who do you usually sell tea to? Is it to middlemen that come up to the village, to tea stores in the city, or does a family member set up a market stall in Hangzhou and sell to individuals?”
The woman smiled, “We don't care too much for money up here. Our lives are simple. We pick tea all spring and relax for the rest of the year. We grow our own food, so we don't need much. If people come to our house, we will sell them tea. Some villagers go sell to tourists, but that is because their tea is not as good. We sell to one person who finds us, and they tell their friends, who tell their friends. That is enough.”
It is individual farmers like these who lay the foundation of my search for tea's identity. These farmers own their land generations back. During the cultural revolution, they said, the land was made into commune-style farming. I asked if they were ordered to increase output and lower quality to provide more tea for China. The woman's husband entered, “No, we have always given the same quality tea.” It seems that even revolutionaries, Mao Zedong included, had a penchant for this legendary tea.
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