Mostly about a Tea Experience

Hangzhou, China

After settling in to my cozy little room, I proceeded to negotiate the Hangzhou bus system to take me out to the countryside, just out of town, to a silk factory, where I saw the process of taking silk worm cocoons and making silk. I didn't go to the Silk Museum here, as I plan to see the one in Suzhou. Instead, I followed a Chinese tour group into a random (for me) factory. The tour was in Chinese, and the staff didn't speak English, but I could understand much of the process from observing the demonstrations. Interestingly, this factory made silk comforters. About 80% of the comforters had outer covers in pastel pink silk. There were also a few with natural undyed off-white covers. The only other colors were used in comforters with children's prints. The main work of this factory was making the silk batting that was the filling. A man demonstrated that you could take the batting, twist it roughly, play tug-o-war with it, and it didn't budge from its original shape. Quite impressive. It was possible to pull a fine thread of it out of the batting, but that didn't seem to harm anything. He also lit it twice with a match, but it promptly extinguished itself. It's lightweight and very soft. it seems that it would be terrific bedding. The benefit of joining a Chinese only tour group at a factory that doesn't appear to get foreign tour groups, was getting to see the price list for Chinese: The expensive, heavy weight quilts ran up to $100.00 USD (actually about 650 y, so a smidge under $100.00). The lightweight cheaper quilts were as low as 150y ($22.22 USD) for a twin, if I remember correctly. I wonder what the American tourist price would be? Lacking guanxi (advantageous business or social connections), foreigners always have to pay more. But when prices are posted, as they were at the factory, everyone pays the same. (They are rarely posted at tourist venues except in museum or higher end shops.)

Then I saw a fairly expensive car pull up to a tea selling place next to the Tea Museum, but unaffiliated with it. (That business wins on location!) After communicating with the receptionist with hand signals, it was made clear that I could enter, so I decided to follow him inside, originally to ask where the Tea Museum was. The staff misunderstood and ushered me with the man into a small alcove room to a tea tasting table. Then a worker brought in trays with three different grades of Dragon Well Tea (longjing cha). She took out four glasses and put the good grade of tea in two and the best grade of tea in two. (She managed to say “good” and “best” in English, but didn't know the word to explain the status of the 3^rd tea, which we didn't sample in any case. Then she poured about 2 oz of a-little-off-the- boil water on the tea, presumably to wet it, swished it around, poured off the excess water, and poured some new water on it. Additional water was added, to total three pourings of water. Later I read that this is nodding? bowing? (forgot the verb) the phoenix three times, done to make the tea drinking more ceremonious and to honor the guests (aka customers). After that, the man and I had to drink the tea very slowly, as it was scalding. As we slowly sipped it down, more water was added. Not until the tea had been completely drunk would there be any price discussion. Then negotiations commenced and continued briefly, but there was much less negotiation downward from the initial price than I'd experienced/seen at the various day and night markets. I'm not sure if that was because she was already giving the Chinese price or because longjing cha is so famous they don't have to discount it. In the end, I bought some of the “best” quality stuff; hopefully, my tea-drinking family and friends can tell the difference and will find the “best” stuff a treat. It didn't really impress me, but then, I'm not a tea-drinker. (To me it tasted like weak, overboiled spinach water and had no fragrance, although the saleswoman had us smell it before drinking it, so she must have perceived some scent.) The Chinese man with me, who could not have been a plant, as he had no way to know I'd follow him into the business, seemed to truly enjoy the stuff. He lit up a cigarette, settled back to relax and enjoy the excruciatingly long process of buying a tin of fresh tea.

Later I showed the tea to two Chinese women who spoke some English and asked for their assessment of the tea's quality and price. They had me open the tin, so they could examine the tea. Then they pronounced it “good” quality for “good pay,” which may be truly their opinion or just a way to make a silly tourist feel okay about her purchase.

After that I returned to the task of trying to find the Tea Museum, which took a little doing, as turned about 500 yards too soon. I could see the tea plantation all around me, but I had to point to the Chinese characters for Tea Museum with three different people to get directions I could understand. The museum was interesting, and had many captions in English. I learned that tea culture in China dates back to the Han dynasty, with various flowerings of it during Sui, Song, Tang, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Tang and Ming eras both showed major developments and improvements to the growing and production of tea, as well as the arts of tasting and drinking it. Before the Ming dynasty, it was mostly ground up and pressed into round cakes. Then a Ming dynasty emperor required that tribute to him be paid in loose tea. Emulation of the emperor brought loose tea into fashion. Also learned that there are six kinds of tea, all from the same plant and differing only in the processing: green, black, oolong (a mix of green and black), yellow (most popular with Southern China's minority groups), white, and (forgot the word, but they are mixed with other things—teas like Jasmine, a blend of black tea and actual jasmine flowers, are an example).

I didn't go to the official Tea Village, mostly because I didn't want to wait for the bus and have to negotiate how to get there, but instead just watched the local tea workers in their fields for a while. It's in a beautiful area, beneath vertically rising, misty topped mountains, with a pagoda on top of one of them. A lovely stream with blooming lotuses, edges some of the fields.

Then I saw a fairly expensive car pull up to a tea selling place next to the Tea Museum, but unaffiliated with it. It wasn't a shop, exactly, but more like a wholesale business store front, although they also sold in small quantities. (That business wins on location!) After communicating with the receptionist with hand signals, it was made clear that I could enter, so I decided to follow him inside, originally to ask where the Tea Museum was. The staff misunderstood and ushered me with the man into a small alcove room to a tea tasting table. Then a worker brought in trays with three different grades of Dragon Well Tea (longjing cha). She took out four glasses and put the good grade of tea in two and the best grade of tea in two. (She managed to say “good” and “best” in English, but didn't know the word to explain the status of the 3^rd tea, which we didn't sample in any case. Then she poured about 2 oz of a-little-off-the- boil water on the tea, presumably to wet it, swished it around, poured off the excess water, and poured some new water on it. Additional water was added, to total three pourings of water. Later I read that this is nodding? bowing? (forgot the verb) the phoenix three times, done to make the tea drinking more ceremonious and to honor the guests (aka customers). After that, the man and I had to drink the tea very slowly, as it was scalding. As we slowly sipped it down, more water was added. Not until the tea had been completely drunk would there be any price discussion. Then negotiations commenced and continued briefly, but there was much less negotiation downward from the initial price than I'd experienced/seen at the various day and night markets. I'm not sure if that was because she was already giving the Chinese price or because longjing cha is so famous they don't have to discount it. In the end, I bought some of the “best” quality stuff; hopefully, my tea-drinking family and friends can tell the difference and will find the “best” stuff a treat. It didn't really impress me, but then, I'm not a tea-drinker. The Chinese man with me, who could not have been a plant, as he had no way to know I'd follow him inside, seemed to truly enjoy the stuff. He lit up a cigarette, settled back to relax and enjoy the excruciatingly long process of buying a tin of fresh tea.

Later I showed the tea to two Chinese women who spoke some English and asked for their assessment of the tea's quality and price. They had me open the tin, so they could examine the tea. Then they pronounced it “good” quality for “good pay,” which may be truly their opinion or just a way to make a silly tourist feel okay about her purchase.

So it was a day of silk and tea, two items for which Hangzhou is famous. It took at least an hour to get to the silk factory and 45 minutes back, partly because buses are slower than taxis (but cheaper—and they let you see more of the local life and surroundings), and partly because it took me much longer to find and identify street and building names. Not all of the streets are marked. Those that are marked are not marked at every intersection, just periodically. Not all marked streets are double marked in both Chinese characters and pinyin. It's amazingly difficult to remember the look of a string of intricate characters that you can't read. Interestingly, I also found it difficult to remember the exact navigational significance of of which buildings I passed where; I'd recognize them, but couldn't reliably recall what they were landmarks for. Was Starbucks at the turn-off of the street I needed to get back to? Or just some place I remembered because I'd seen it previously and could read the name? Did I remember the stomachology hospital because the name amused me or because it marked a bus transfer point or both? Still, I got there (not to 100% of the intended “theres” but to some of them and to equally good or better substitute options) and back again without getting lost. Nonetheless, it is a bit stressful and exhausting. Hangzhou is a city of over 6 million, and the main downtown streets are 6-7 lanes wide (2 bike/scooter lanes and 4-5 car/bus/truck lanes). There are vast legions of buses and many run every 5 minutes. For shorter trips, there are public bicycle vendors. Bikes are one-speed basic models with a basket and a bell, but the land is flat, so that's okay. No one wears a helmet. Public transportation is highly efficient. Still, the size of the city is a bit intimidating.

Then, suddenly, you arrive at West Lake, located just at the edge of the center of town, and everything changes. Pedestrians and cyclists are everywhere. People are strolling around the huge lake, lovers walking, kids playing, elders sitting, small groups listening to impromptu musical performances on instruments I can't identify, etc. Small tourist boats of various descriptions go out on the lake. People stop to see the various pagodas and gardens, and so on. This seems to go on all day and evening. My hostel is beside the lake—very pleasant. Weather permitting, I'll spend tomorrow exploring around West Lake on foot, so I won't have to deal with public transportation, at least for a day.