The Dragon Well
Xiao Mao here. I'm about to tell you about a certain famous tea. Photos by Donald.
The bus from Hangzhou to Longjing village takes only 30 minutes. I was reading some of the Hanzi outloud to myself and the bus stop, "Long Jing Shan Yuan, Long Jing Village," when an old lady asked me,
"Are you going to Long Jing Village?"
"Yes, I am," I said.
"Going to drink tea?"
"That's right."
"I'll show you the stop," she offered. We began talking after we got on the bus, and I learned that she was indeed a tea farmer, coming in to Hangzhou city in order to refill her bus card. Her Chinese seemed strangely over-pronounced, which is unusual because most people tend only to speak louder when I misunderstand them, but never clearly. I suspect her native language is Wu, common in central China.
The tall buildings disappeared after only a few minutes' ride. Replacing them -- Tea Gardens. Rows upon rows of green bushes lined in steps up the sides of gentle hills.
Our tea lady beckoned us off the bus at the last stop and we began to walk towards her house. This village is quite a tourist spot for the Chinese, and the tea farmers are all rich from it. No thatched-roof mud-huts will be seen in Longjing or its neighboring villages, but newly built two-story houses with rosewood windows and wide front doors that open to a patio. Yet the interiors of the lovely houses contain sparse decorum. On a dusty concrete wall, a shiny new flat-screen TV hangs over a beat-up folding table. As you pass a house, one of the farmers looks up from playing cards and says, "Long jing cha?" in a casual and unaggressive tone.
We bought 3 liang of tea from our guide. I won't bore you with the details of Longjing grading, but we got good tea for ourselves and the best grade as a present for Wei Wei, the tea art teacher, in Shenyang.
The main objective now complete, we decided to wander. Hills of tea gardens rose up to either side of us. Thin paths threaded through the bushes, small stones were piled to create steps on the terraces. Tea plants grew right along the cobblestone road we walked, and even these seemingly-wild plants were tended, the buds carefully cut in anticipation of new growth.
This area is called 9 creeks.
Chickens are a usual site.
One path followed a waterfall up the side of the mountain.
Finally, we visited the imperial teahouse where Emperor Qianlong once enjoyed Longjing. In the back, on a modest patio, is the namesake of Longjing tea: The Dragon Well.
Only a few meters across, with nothing particularly special to set it apart from any other well. In fact, Longjing tea is traditionally brewed with water from another spring entirely, from Hupao Spring. In the end, there is not much connection between the tea and the Dragon Well itself. But regardless, it stirred me to look at the dragon's head perched above the well, water trickling from somewhere deep beneath ferns' roots and over its chin into the basin. I felt that his grey, stone eyes, in their infinite calm, had somehow recognized me, knew me from halfway across the world and half a lifetime of tea drinking. In the sound of the water dripping I could hear not words, but meaning: Welcome back.
The bus from Hangzhou to Longjing village takes only 30 minutes. I was reading some of the Hanzi outloud to myself and the bus stop, "Long Jing Shan Yuan, Long Jing Village," when an old lady asked me,
"Are you going to Long Jing Village?"
"Yes, I am," I said.
"Going to drink tea?"
"That's right."
"I'll show you the stop," she offered. We began talking after we got on the bus, and I learned that she was indeed a tea farmer, coming in to Hangzhou city in order to refill her bus card. Her Chinese seemed strangely over-pronounced, which is unusual because most people tend only to speak louder when I misunderstand them, but never clearly. I suspect her native language is Wu, common in central China.
The tall buildings disappeared after only a few minutes' ride. Replacing them -- Tea Gardens. Rows upon rows of green bushes lined in steps up the sides of gentle hills.
Our tea lady beckoned us off the bus at the last stop and we began to walk towards her house. This village is quite a tourist spot for the Chinese, and the tea farmers are all rich from it. No thatched-roof mud-huts will be seen in Longjing or its neighboring villages, but newly built two-story houses with rosewood windows and wide front doors that open to a patio. Yet the interiors of the lovely houses contain sparse decorum. On a dusty concrete wall, a shiny new flat-screen TV hangs over a beat-up folding table. As you pass a house, one of the farmers looks up from playing cards and says, "Long jing cha?" in a casual and unaggressive tone.
We bought 3 liang of tea from our guide. I won't bore you with the details of Longjing grading, but we got good tea for ourselves and the best grade as a present for Wei Wei, the tea art teacher, in Shenyang.
The main objective now complete, we decided to wander. Hills of tea gardens rose up to either side of us. Thin paths threaded through the bushes, small stones were piled to create steps on the terraces. Tea plants grew right along the cobblestone road we walked, and even these seemingly-wild plants were tended, the buds carefully cut in anticipation of new growth.
This area is called 9 creeks.
Chickens are a usual site.
One path followed a waterfall up the side of the mountain.
Finally, we visited the imperial teahouse where Emperor Qianlong once enjoyed Longjing. In the back, on a modest patio, is the namesake of Longjing tea: The Dragon Well.
Only a few meters across, with nothing particularly special to set it apart from any other well. In fact, Longjing tea is traditionally brewed with water from another spring entirely, from Hupao Spring. In the end, there is not much connection between the tea and the Dragon Well itself. But regardless, it stirred me to look at the dragon's head perched above the well, water trickling from somewhere deep beneath ferns' roots and over its chin into the basin. I felt that his grey, stone eyes, in their infinite calm, had somehow recognized me, knew me from halfway across the world and half a lifetime of tea drinking. In the sound of the water dripping I could hear not words, but meaning: Welcome back.