A Return to Zhuyeqing Garden

The Freshmen Class 1 invited the Gap Guys and me to go pick tea with them at the Zhuyqing Garden. Pick tea! Great idea.

Mr. Frank and Ms. Jennifer dropped by our apartment at 0900 on Saturday and we walked back up the hill to the Live Plaza where several of the freshmen were waiting for us and transportation. The Gap Guys, Jennifer and I took a rented car to the garden while the other students took a bus to Emei City and would get a taxi.


Here is Jennifer waiting for the car while we visit with the other students.

The Welcome Sign at the entrance to the Zhuyeqing Museum and Garden.


We had a good time introducing the Gap Guys to some of the other students as we waited for the rest of the freshmen to arrive.

The "koi" and gold fish were especially active this morning so I had to get several shots of them. They looked pretty hungry.

The Zhuyeqing Rock is always a good place to take a few pictures. Still waiting for the others to arrive, we looked for things to keep us entertained.

Finally the rest of the class arrived and Ms. Freda arranged for us to meet our tea lady who took us over to the tea plantation to pick our tea.


The tea lady, Ms. Yang, went around and helped us understand which tea leaves we needed to pick. Here she trains me on what to look for in picking tea. Do I have what it takes to be a professional in the tea industry? With her guidance, I may have a shot at it.

Ms. Freda picking tea as quickly as she possibly can. Actually she was not picking the tea that quickly. I looked into her bag a the end of the picking and I counted 42 leaves.

Bless his little tea picking hands - Admon.

More pickers slaving away at trying to fill up their tea bags.

If one looks closely, one can see the newly formed teabuds among the mature tea leaves.

Ms. Yang seemed to really enjoy training the "waiguo ren" as he attempted to become a professional tea picker. She could speak a little English and we had a great time trying to get me to understand what leaves to pick and what leaves to leave. Leaving the correct leaves seemed to be the key to picking the correct leaves. She was a delightful teacher.

This is what we were looking for according to Ms. Yang. One small leaf attached to the unopen tea bud. These were the best tea leaves to pick.

A great picture of a newly opened tea leaf.

Here two students are bothering me for pictures as I try to fulfill my destiny as a tea picker.

After an hour of picking tea, these three students got bored so they started taking pictures and having a good time. Tea picking is boring!

Here, Mr. Jack, joins the bored trio for picture taking and none tea picking activities.

More freshmen clowning around not doing their class activity of picking tea. Guess none will sign up to the advanced tea picking class coming up soon.

Jon, one of the Gap Guys, conned these students into picking the tea for him. I looked into his tea basket and he only hand 33 tea leaves. No wonder he had to have guards with him all the time.


Here are some of the guys on the other end of the tea rows. Notice their empty tea baskets and bags. No wonder there are no professional men tea pickers. Only women have the hands that are small enough to get to all the good tea buds. Only women have the ability to pick tea from dawn 'til dusk. Only women do not goof around and take stupid pictures. Women also work together with the others in the group and do not wonder far afield and clown around when they are supposed to be picking tea.

This is the official Freshmen Class1 Tea Picking Picture. I will print a couple of these out and have the members of the class sign it and then we will present them to the Gap Guys.

Here is the sum total of all the tea the class picked. The basket is really very small so there is not much tea in the basket. In fact, we did not have enough tea for the tea cooker to mess with. We will have to fry it ourselves. I eventually ended up with the tea for Sunee to fry next week after she gets back from Thailand.


Mr. Frank thinks the fresh-picked tea smelled really good. Or did he? I forgot to ask.

As we walked back to go through the museum, I took these pictures of some of the girls posing for pictures. Not too bad, huh?


Mr. Jack is overwhelmed by the aroma of the freshly picked tea. Or was he? Me thinks he might have been acting, which he is famous for doing.

Here Ms. Jennifer and Ms. Freda pose by a flowering tree. I kept asking what kind of tree it was or what kind of flower. All I got was that it was a PINK FLOWER.

One of the flowers identified as a PINK FLOWER!

Inside the Zhuyeqing Museum

I got to watch the show again and, again, I was not impressed with the length. The whole thing took about ten minutes. I did try to get some better pictures of the lovely lady doing the gaiwan thing which she does here.

This lady obvious has done this before. She pours the water from a pretty good distance from the gaiwan cup. Seen it before and actually done better at many of the local tea shops.

The Sichuan style of pouring water into the gaiwan. This demo lasted about three minutes. I tried to get some good shots but my camera takes longer than three minutes to get ready.

A porcelain figure representing drinking tea in China. Notice the tea stuff around the guy.

The Gap Guys, Jon and Dave, discovered that this wood thing was actually a giant tea pot. I missed this the first time around.

Dave here is doing a really lousy impression of the Sichuan style of pouring tea. He made it appear to be very painful. I fear he does not have a future in the tea industry.

Each exhibit had English translations for us foreigners to read. Here Jon checks out the English to find out what the heck the exhibition is about. Actually Jon was just looking blankly at the Chinese.

Ms. Freda does a very poor job of faking caligraphy. I tried to get her to be more realistic but it is obvious that she is a poor actress. Maybe she is a good caligrapher!

Shopping area in the museum. The tea here was not cheap. In fact, it was very, very expensive.


The "what is it, what is it" photo I had so much success with the week before with Giselle, Cecilia and Taunis. Same picture, different models.

The garden and museum was fun and educational. Afterward we got vans back to the university where we had a typical Emei Shan lunch. Kind of a hot pot thing with chickens and taro floating around in a spicy liquid. Not bad but the chicken was full of bones and took a lot of effort to eat.

A final picture of Ms. Freda enjoying our lunch.

Thailand Doi Mae Salong No. 17 Oolong

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am very interested in the oolong tea now coming out of Northern Thailand. Specifically the tea that was produced at Doi Mae Salong.

Back in the 1980s, my Thai family and I made the trip to Chiang Rai and then on up to Mae Salong via the newly constructed road. It was a strange place with modern cars and fairly expensive looking housing. The people there were all Chinese and spoke Mandarin fluently. We walked among the buildings in the village (all pretty much on both side of the newly constructed asphalt road). We ate lunch at the main tourist building and visited with the sales ladies who were selling tea and other items, mostly Chinese. It was a strange experience because the ladies were certainly friendly but the men were rather scary. In fact, they all reminded me of the gangster movies from Hong Kong. These guys were bad, really bad.

We ended up buying three bags of their tea. When we got back to Bangkok, we found the tea to be really bad - almost fake tea. The people up at Mae Salong were not tea growers at this time and it was obvious that the whole thing was a scam to get the government off their drug dealing backs.

At that time, I did some research and found that this group of Chinese were the remnants of the Kuomintang's 93 Yunnan Division and were members of the 5th Army. They had moved out of Yunnan Province during the 1950s after NOT surrendering to the Red Army in Yunnan. In Burma they had become involved in the drug trade (opium) and were eventually forced out of Burma and into Thailand where they set up residence at Mae Salong around 1961. Their drug connections were still very much alive and well when we visited there.

I remember reading how the King of Thailand had worked with them to trade crops from opium to tea, cherries and other fruits. When we were there, we were told that these people had successfully used the program and were now honest tea growers. I did not believe it for a second! Their tea really sucked.

Now it seems after more than twenty years, they have become successful tea growers. Do a Google search about these Chinese Yunnanese and you will find that they have developed a pretty impressive tea. Seems they went to Taiwan and brought back some of the hybrid teas that Taiwan had developed and become famous for. Taiwan Oolongs are some of the world's best and compete favorably against the Oolongs coming out of Fujian.

Well, now it seems that these Chinese in Thailand have done exactly the same thing. I have read several articles which praised the Oolongs out of Doi Mae Salong and Doi Tung in Northern Thailand. When we went back to Thailand during the Spring Festival break, the tea from this area could be bought at several different locations. It was not cheap but reported about half the price of Taiwan's best. Sunee was not interested in it as she feels strongly that Thai tea (other than the traditional iced variety) pretty well stinks. She would not let me buy to try any of this tea. I did, however, steal a few grams from her sister who had paid nearly 900 Baht for a very small bag of it.

Now I have heated the water up and have tried this tea. It was labeled Number 17 from Mae Salong. Research found that this Number 17 is the hybrid number from Taiwan and is Thailand's best tea along with Number 12. Let's see just how good this Thai tea really is.



The tea looks like the standard oolong from Fujian or Taiwan. The smell was fresh and the color was a deep green.


Up close, the tea looked to be tightly wrapped and quite heavy. Again the color looked really good and it was obvious that the tea was fresh and well preserved.


I used my little teapot to make the tea, rinsing the leaves once before pouring the boiled water from my water pot. The first infusion was rather light but pleasant. The second and third I left in for about a minute and the result was superb. This tea is good! Really good. I got no hint of astringency and the front and back tastes and sensations remained pretty much consistent throughout my drinking experience - smooth and tasty. The liquor was a honey golden color and did not darken much even with longer infusion times. The taste became stronger with the longer times but the color was pretty consistent.


This is the second infusion and was very refreshing. Something tells me this is a great tea and the price indicates this as well.

I did not think I put much dry tea in my little pot, but when I emptied the pot into a small cup, the teapot was jammed full of the leaves. The spent leaves were huge and mostly unbroken. They were also very shiny and bright. Once more, Thai tea from this area is as good as any I have tasted from Fujian. Kind of nice having a good tea being grown when one plans to eventually retire. Try this tea. You will not be disappointed.

A Trip To The Zhu Ye Qing Museum and Gardens

About a week or so ago, one of my students mentioned about a tea museum in Emei City. They were not sure exactly where it was so thought I would find out. My Freshman Writing Class #2 had a local Emei City student studying at Jiaoda so thought I would ask her.

As the students were working on an assignment, I asked Cecilia about the tea museum and she immediately volunteered to take me there. Two other students excitedly volunteered to go with us: Mr. Taunis and Ms. Giselle. We decided to meet at around 10 AM on Saturday (March 7) to catch a bus to Emei City and then take a taxi to the museum. All of us seemed to be greatly excited about the prospects of visiting the museum. Could it be that the Mists of Emei had been causing us some depression? For me this was most definitely true.

Saturday morning I got a call from Sunee concerning her return tickets. Seems we purchased a return economy instead of the expected business seat as we were led to believe. This little oversight meant that she could not get an earlier flight home and had to wait until Sunday. She was upset and wanted me to get someone to call the travel agency. I told Sunee I was going to see some students at 10 AM and I would take care of it.

Since Giselle, Taunis and Cecilia were more than capable of helping me get to the bottom of this "mistake," we all decided to go to the travel agency first. It was only a few meters from the bus stop.

The travel agency had some minor remodeling done and I almost did not recognize it. Between me and the three students we explained the situation to the agent. She did not perform impressively and it took about a half hour or more to finally come up with the answer - the return ticket was indeed an economy ticket. The question thus was why were we charged so much money for a business travel and an economy return. The agent, only an employee, could not help us so I said we would see her again on the 15th when Sunee got back. Taunis was convinced that we had been cheated. We shall see!

The Zhu Ye Qing Tea Museum and Garden

After getting frustrated by the ticket agency, we caught a taxi to the gardens.


The taxi to the museum was 7 Yuan and there seemed to be quite a number of tour buses parked outside. The welcoming sign was in both Chinese and English and gave a decent description of the place.

My three student guides anxious to get started as they pose for the opening photographs for this blog.

Hey look, Mr. Taunis yelled at us, this is the way to the museum. Was he reading the Chinese or the English?

This is the obvious Zhuyeqing rock as the brand name was prominently displayed on it. Zhuyeqing is both the name of the tea and a registered trademark of this big tea company. Makes for some confusion, especially for the none locals. Cecilia explained the situation to me very easily. Zhuyeqing Company charges five times more for their tea than does the local vendors for the same tea. I understood that fairly quick!

On the way to the museum, there was a row of bronze statues on both sides of the walk. I liked this teapicker so thought I would share her with you.


I also like the Sichuan-style tea server. I had heard about these guys so was hoping to see one in action today.



The entrance to the museum was obvious so we went up to check it out. The cost to get in was 5 Yuan so I bought our tickets. We all received a little cup of Zhuyeqing to try.

This is the ticket to the museum. Always a nice souvenir in China.

As we walked in, the ladies at the entrance told us we were just in time to see the tea demonstration so we hurried to the auditorium to watch. Of course, it was a Chinese Tea Ceremony.


It was ok but way to short. In fact, the whole thing did not even take fifteen minutes. It was a big disappointment plus I had seen better demos up close and personal.


As we walked out and followed the small crowd of visitors, we came to a large room with antique furniture. Must be a typical Chinese tea sitting room. So Taunis and Giselle sat and posed as appropriate on the chairs.

Around the room on the tables were tea stuff. Most of it had cracks or broken pieces. This teapot was very large and probably pretty useless because of its size.


Since we were in a tea sitting room, I figured I might as well sit for a photo as well.

Don't forget me! Don't forget me! Cecilia yelled as she sat in the sitting chair with her favorite bunny in hand.

The wall was covered with Chinese tea stuff so thought I would snap a picture for the blog. Believe the Chinese characters are for respect and humility or some such thing. For sure the one on the right is "respect."

The Museum

The next part of the building was the tea museum. It was small, nicely laid out but does not compete with the tea museum in Jia Jiang. Most of the stuff was rather drab and uninteresting. Might as well take some pictures since I am here.

I really liked this plaque so I took a picture of it. Believe I will try to find one like it for our Chinese compound in Thailand which we plan to build.

This is a root that grew (or was trimmed) to look like the Chinese character for tea - "cha."


Bet there are lots of teapots in here? Don't bet against it because there were. This weird one looked to be made of bamboo.

Another plaque that would fit well into a Chinese compound located in southern Thailand, don't you think?


This was an interesting display that caught my attention. The large teapot was rather simple but refined and I loved the "cha" that shows on the book next to it.


Bet there are some teacups in this museum. Yep, I was right. This one had some buddhas inside and outside and looked to be very old.

Teapot anyone? Lots of interesting teapots on display.

All the exhibits had a professionally laid out explanation board next to them in both Chinese and English. Throughout the museum, one saw these bilingual information posters. Now that is a good idea for all of us foreigners.


Now here is a weird teapot! As I looked at it, I finally figured out what the thing in the back was - a spoon to scoop out the tea and put it in the pot. Actually, this was really a very attractive pot.


As we walked through the rooms full of museum stuff we came to a room set up for calligraphy. Nicely laid out. Once more Cecilia checks out the seating and even does some calligraphy for the photograph. She, of course, forgot that the brush needs to have ink on it to work.

Moving on we came to an area that was entitled Sichuan Scenes or something like that. I call this photograph - SPOUTS. These are the water spouts that the sichuan tea servers used.

I call this photograph - The Pour Idiot.


Both Giselle and Taunis do a much better rendition of the sichuan tea server.


Here Cecilia and I pose in front of the typical Sichuan tea place for a picture. Notice that Cecilia loaned me one of her pet bunnies to hold in my hand. She always seems to have bunnies whenever we take her picture.


How are you? I am fine and you? Taunis greets his teacher and they pose for a photograph in OLD EMEI CITY.


Nice pose of Giselle and Cecilia. Unfortunately for Cecilia, her bunnies must have been hiding in her pocket.


Looking closely at the display to try to figure out what it is. Right, ladies?

Interesting old BW photograph of a typical street scene in old Emei City.


Path to the Garden

We leave the museum and follow the path that leads to the tea garden.


Weird, over-sized teapots sat along the path on both sides. Most were boring but this guy was different so I snapped his picture.

What is it? What is it? Yelling for me to take a picture, I immediately obliged their frantic yells. Well, "it" was nothing more than a teapot with weird things on its lid.

Zhuyeqing Garden

The garden was very Chinese (who would have thought!) and lovely.

My three guides pose for a picture just as we enter the garden. They are anxious to show me what Chinese gardens are all about.


All "real" Chinese gardens have water be it a pond or a running river. This garden was no exception with a beautifully laid out pond and buildings.

All Chinese gardens have a bridge of some sort. This bridge looked great with the surrounding architectural forms.


Here is another view of the garden with pagoda, pond and the surrounding architecture forms again.


The Tea Plants

The tea plants. The tea plants. Where are the tea plants? Cecilia was anxious and excited to show us the tea plants so she asked one of the attendants. Straight ahead on our left - we can't miss them.

An information sign telling us about the famous Emei Mountain zhuyeqing tea. Of course, the Zhuyeqing Tea Company zhuyeqing tea is by far the best!


Rows upon rows upon rows of tea. Me thinks this is not real as the zhuyeqing tea is supposed to be high up on Emei Mountain. Do you want to bet these are tourist tea plants?


And finally here is a little zhuyeqing waiting to be picked. See the bamboo leaf shape of the young leaf just now coming out.