On Tuesday Tony and I went to the tea market in FongChun (芳村) to accomplish three things: drink really expensive tea for free, buy some really inexpensive tea, and do some filming for our blog at tea legends. And yes, in case you were wondering, we didn’t pay them to film there, so that was free too!
Overall the tea was fantastic. We had a tea called, “Fragrance of a Thousand Miles,” and another called, “Golden Quick-Horse Eyebrows,” and yet another called, “Big Red Robe.” Of course you’d think that Fragrance of a Thousand Miles would taste the best, but Golden Quick-Horse Eyebrows outdid it. Big Red Robe, also known as Da Hong Pao (大紅袍) was the one that knocked our socks off. It’s the strongest of the three and was also the most expensive. We had two varieties. Expensive and really, really expensive. One of the teas cost over $1,600 per kilogram. That’s about $8 per brew. Each brew gets about 4 small Chinese style teacups which, when poured into a western style mug, would be half a cup. So basically it’s $16 a cup!
The Master at Work
The girl preparing the tea didn’t mind showing us as many teas as we pleased (rhymes eh?), so we sat there for a solid 3 hours drinking and drinking. By the time we got up I had the tea shakes. Tony joked that if I started to shake the girl would get some cakes for me to try to counter the effects of the tea. I put my hand above my cup and started to shake it, and sure enough she ran to the cupboard to fetch some cakes. She told us she had been working in this same teashop for 6 years. Every day she prepares tea for customers and drinks it with them. We often see her identifying different types of tea laid out on trays just by smelling them! She’s a true master!
Tony's Rating System
Here you can see Tony’s 5-Star Rating System. A tea that get’s 5 stars is said to be orgasmic. A tea that you would find in a restaurant in Chinatown (or any tea that comes in a bag; not that I don’t like teabags) wouldn’t get a star on this list. It just can’t compare.
If you want to see more pictures of the day, you can have a look at my Tea Legends set on flickr. Below I leave you with a picture illustrating a glass pitcher being used to cool the water before using it to brew the tea. Some teas require not-so-hot water apparently.
