A Day Out in the Tea Hills

Ms Waterman
(teacher)

We spent Saturday (our second in Hangzhou) with Charlotte, another English teacher at Hanggao. To reach our two destinations, we drove through endless gorgeous hills and mountains covered in tea trees. It was such fun to see the gorgeous geometry of the trees planted in rows rising up into the hills, and since it is late March, there were dozens of workers among them harvesting tea leaves. Charlotte explained that the best tea during the year is the tea that is available before Tomb Sweeping Day (usually April 5 or 6). She also said that it is the most expensive tea of the year because the taste is supposed to be the purest. Maybe we will have a chance to taste some in the next week!

We went first to the Bamboo Lined Path where we saw huge forests of bamboo trees and green waterfalls. Kelby and I accidentally hiked a huge staircase up to a temple for the god of wealth. I say “accidentally” because we thought the temple was much closer than it turned out to be! It took us 30 minutes of intense stair climbing to reach the summit where we saw a green temple garden where a lot of people were eating a picnic lunch. We were glad that we had persevered through the tough climb because we were greeted by a cheerful sign announcing that “exercises and workouts are good for health and the most important thing is persistence”. We were grateful, though, to meet Liz and Charlotte down the mountain since that meant we were on the way to the Tea Museum.

The Tea Museum was quiet and scenic and we were very excited to arrive because we had planned to meet Justin Seymour, a 2016 DS grad there. Justin is studying in Shanghai for the semester, and when he learned from my wonderful colleague (and his former teacher), Ms. Leah Li, that we were in Hangzhou, he contacted us to meet up for the day. Together, we all toured the Tea Museum and caught up about our lives. At the museum, I learned that I knew nothing about tea production and that the harvesting, drying, shaping, fermenting, etc. of tea leaves is so much more complicated than I had previously thought! It was really cool to learn the differences between various kinds of tea (green, black, oolong, white, yellow, dark) and it has made me all the more determined to learn more by continuing to taste many kinds! Green tea is the most popular tea in China, and I thought that was interesting because there are so few varieties of green tea available in the US. We tend to drink black tea more at home, but having had mostly green tea here for the past month, I might be converted!

After lunch (which included delicious eggplant- Kelby and I were so happy!), we returned to Hanggao. Charlotte took us to the end of the Cherry Blossom Festival at the school, and we had some time to chat with students and take pictures with them, listen to students singing karaoke, and see the many tables set up with small trinkets to buy.

When the fair ended, Justin and I decided to walk to West Lake to explore. I had only visited this famous attraction once before, so I wanted to see more of the famed 10 scenic spots. We walked over the Broken Bridge (which is not, in fact, broken, but it does lie very low in the water) and we had a beautiful view from the middle of the lake. We wandered around a small park in the middle of the lake which had pavilions, modern sculptures, blooming cherry blossom trees, and a great view of the mountains around the lake. Justin had a long conversation (in Chinese!) with a local lady and as a language teacher, I was so proud to see him using his language skills! He said that he definitely feels more confident each week that he spends in Shanghai and that he is so glad to be here.

Before we decided that we were hungry enough to find dinner, Justin and I admired the lights that had been turned in just as darkness fell. The bridge was illuminated along with a few pagodas that we could see on distant hills as well as all of the trees surrounding the lake. The effect was magical! I now understand why West Lake is such an renowned location in China and why Hangzhou is so proud of it! Though we had explored some of the lake’s many beautiful sections, we did not see everything, so I will have to go back (maybe with a map).