TeaChat

My comment in the green tea section prompts this question: Are there any Chinese or Japanese tours that are oriented towards tea ? Like visiting tea farms, participating in various stages of tea production, augmented by country-side explorations ? I wouldn't mind spending two weeks in China/Japan and not seeing any big cities at all. A tour operator or contryside chalets/housing with such facilities arrangements.

Seven Cups runs several tea tours to China each year. I think the past itineraries are on their website.

http://www.sevencups.com/china-tea-tours/

http://www.floatingleavestea.com/index. ... fc319bc182

I'm not a big tour group person myself, but I did recommend it to a friend who's going to go this year. I like that she even further trimmed down the group size.

Riding on the Shinkansen through Shizuoka and Kyoto I got to see a lot of tea farms.
I can't really imagine it being much of a tour though.

"And if you look to your left you'll see tea leaves...
And if you look to your right you'll see more tea leaves.
Oh and don't look now but, that harvester is carrying a bag of tea leaves.
Now for the guest shop. We sell coffee mugs and shot glasses"

SlientSipper wrote:Riding on the Shinkansen through Shizuoka and Kyoto I got to see a lot of tea farms.
I can't really imagine it being much of a tour though.

"And if you look to your left you'll see tea leaves...
And if you look to your right you'll see more tea leaves.
Oh and don't look now but, that harvester is carrying a bag of tea leaves.
Now for the guest shop. We sell coffee mugs and shot glasses"

I have very similar feelings.
I think the tours led by reputable specialty vendors are cool.
But if you go to China, think twice about going to something like Long Jing tea tour. In a recent TV news program in China, a reporter showed some very expensive tea bought on a tea tour to a tea professional in a regional market. The tea turned out worth less than 1/10 of the price. Then the tea professional said to the report, "What made you buy tea on a tea tour?"

SilentSipper, was your Japan trip on a bicycle?

My 9-5 job here is in Chins is in tourism and I have been trying to set up tea tours and it's darn near impossible. The mindset here is about selling products, not about just learning and enjoying tea for itself. Every Longjing tour includes "tea plantations", but they're all just tourist traps. Believe me, I've been to them all. They have a few trees which surround a bunch of buildings where they just try to sell stuff. I've also found, that the tea they try to sell you is totally different than the tea they let you sample, so you don't the tea you drank, but inferior quality teas. Most of the Longjing they are selling comes from Guangxi Province and not even from Fujian. With the mindset here, it is very hard to design an interesting tea tour which is just about tea and not about selling tea. I have been in contact with a tea research center located here in Guilin about maybe taking some tours, but I'd have to teach the tour guides about tea. The place is astoundingly beautiful, and some of their teas are breathtakingly good, but their best teas are Maojian Green Tea, and not as famous as other types. I think one of the problems with tea plantations too, is that they are like factories, and not particularly beautiful. The beautiful tea plantations are tourist traps. Actually, I talked about the tea plantation, here in Guilin, in my blogs.

gingkoseto wrote:

SlientSipper wrote:Riding on the Shinkansen through Shizuoka and Kyoto I got to see a lot of tea farms.
I can't really imagine it being much of a tour though.

"And if you look to your left you'll see tea leaves...
And if you look to your right you'll see more tea leaves.
Oh and don't look now but, that harvester is carrying a bag of tea leaves.
Now for the guest shop. We sell coffee mugs and shot glasses"

I have very similar feelings.
I think the tours led by reputable specialty vendors are cool.
But if you go to China, think twice about going to something like Long Jing tea tour. In a recent TV news program in China, a reporter showed some very expensive tea bought on a tea tour to a tea professional in a regional market. The tea turned out worth less than 1/10 of the price. Then the tea professional said to the report, "What made you buy tea on a tea tour?"

SilentSipper, was your Japan trip on a bicycle?

Pardon my late reply and no.

The shinkansen is a bullet train.
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/i ... fp-t-701-s

My father insisted we ride in style.
So we did.

I was reading about the Hangzhou Tea Museum in China. I would love to visit that place. Anyone been there?

Yes, I have been there many times. I make sure to visit everytime I'm in Hangzhou. I don't know if you are interested, but I wrote a blog about it last week with some photos. http://ukulelescott.blogspot.com/