Taiwan Tea Trip Photo Journal, November 2015

A recent visit to Alishan tea plantations in Taiwan surely added a new dimension to my daily tea enjoyment.  While preparing tea, I can visualize the sloped green tea fields, the aromas of fresh tea production seeping through the lodge window, the radiant smiles of the plantation B&B's owner....

                     

Below are my photo journals in 5 album links. Most pictures carry commentary captions.  So prepare a cup of your favorite tea, and take a high mountain field trip with me.  Enjoy! 

1. Tea field scenery near Ruili

2. Tea picking experience

3. Tea procession steps

4. Ruili tea plantation B&B stay

5. Ruili tea farmers assembly

(For interested readers, my visit to Tong Ting tea plantation entry was posted on Dec 7 2011; visit about 2006 Yilan tea trip was posted on May 23, 2011) 

Downton Abbey Tea Set

I was happily surprised upon spotting the English breakfast tea service set among Downton Abbey costume exhibit at Winterthur Museum.  It was tucked in a corner in the servant costume display area.  The fruit basket, rolled London newspaper and ironed cloth napkin--pure English elegance!

Besides costume display, my friends were happily surprised as well when I made Oolong tea for them with my petite tea set during the break.  

My Recent Taiwan Tea Field Trip (Part 1: Nov. 11 2011: the tea lodge)

Just as I expected: once we settled with luggages, Mr. Lin, the lodge owner treated us with oolong tea produced from his tea fields.

The wood lodge's living room is warmly decorated with calligraphy, painting, bonsai and orchids.  Both tea table and serving tray were carved from single blocks of hard wood. 
 

Next: evening tea dinner

My Taiwan Tea Field Trip (part 2: Nov. 11 evening tea dinner feast)

most unforgettable among a tableful of yummy dishes:  

beautiful crispy flower petals on top of fried crunchy oolong tea leaves,

stir-fried tender celery stalks picked in the afternoon with taro strips,

the most flavorful chicken wings I have tasted ever-- braised with oolong tea in a clay pot.

My Taiwan Tea Field Trip (part 3: Nov. 11 midnight till 2 am: participation in tea production)

We stayed in the area known for the classic "Tung-Ting" oolong tea.  Thanks to Mr. Lin, the lodge host who treated us with tea dinner feast, I got to observe and participate in tea production at one of his relatives' farm house.  We arrived around 8pm when he had already laid out the leaves for partial drying and was ready to stir the leaves for enzymatic oxidation. 

With his artisan tea experience, he added the optional process of rotating the leaves in the bamboo cradle for further oxidation.  One needs to be patient and observant in order for all the batches to go through similar degree of
transformation.  Then the highlight of the evening (and well worth to give up sleep until 2am): the pleasant aroma released from tea roasting to stop its further oxidation.

My Taiwan Tea Field Trip (part 4: Nov 12: morning stroll near the lodge)

I was awakened by bird chirps and soft sunlight around 7 o'clock.  The garden greeted me with colorful pots of flowers.  Few steps from the backyard, I was among rows of tea shrubs on the slope of Tung-ting mountain!

Looking out across from the tea path, Chi-Ling Lake is refreshingly beautiful. 

After breakfast on the lodge patio, we were guided to vist a local farmer's cafe and its unique surroundings.

Hope for fresh tea produced nearby

antique hot drinks dispenser in Columbus, IN

Recently a tea blog updates me on few more active tea plantations in US.  One  place opens to the public is the Charleston Tea Plantation .  If you are a tea enthusiast and loves to travel, mark your calendar for the plantation's annual
2012 First Flush FesTEAval on Sunday, May 20th. The plantation is open year round: the harvest season starts in May and the Camellia Sinensis plants begin to bloom in late September.

For my tea blog readers near Alabama vicinity, check out this seemingly charming place for yourself: Fairhope Tea Plantation . 

Fresh mozzarella and tomato platter at "The Old Fashioned" restaurant in Madison, WI

It is back to college time, here is a helpful article for the mothers to prepare for tea-loving sons and daughters to stay healthy: Campus teatime. 

Enjoy tea wherever you are!

Dumbarton Oaks Garden Revisit

Urn Garden

Wherever I travel, garden is my first search in local visitor’s guide. Quite a few of my trips were planned with a specific garden in mind, such as tea plantation or garden with camellia collections. Among all garden visits, Dumbarton Oaks Garden hidden on the edge of DC’s Georgetown left me with a special longing to go back again. With all the intention (I even have the visitor info sheet with me all the time), it’s the travel writing class that propelled me to make it happen again.

brick stairway framed by boxwood

Thirty years ago, the visit was with my young family. We followed the guide map and walked through terraces, smelled the roses, posed for group photos. It was a joyous weekend outing in a pleasant, beautiful setting. I didn’t realize then that the intrinsic reason for my longing to go back after 30 years is partly because of the happy memory, and partly the subtle scents of boxwood and magnolia blossoms.

Lovers' Lane Pool

For this visit, I freely followed bricked walkways or boxwood hedges to lead me instead of reading the guide map. On the terrace wall overlooking the rose garden, image of my daughters bending over smelling the flowers overlapped the real blooms. Suddenly a faint familiar fragrance came into focus, I looked around and there it was, a large magnolia tree right above me with a big white blossom!

Sculpture constructed with natural branches

The birds chirped happily and butterflies fluttered between bushes. With a writing pad, I took my notes and even did sketches of a terrace layout. Like meeting an old friend in new outfit, I noticed that many familiar plants were cascading down brick walls or trimmed to espaliers. Benches and chairs invited me to sit down in the shade and gazebo as if a gracious hostess had thoughtfully arranged for me.  I felt so much at home with ease and content.

My next visit would be with my grownup daughters.  I will store their images then with garden arches and cascading wisterias.

Tea Cuisine on the Horizon

Yilang Tea Lodge's garden

Yilang Tea Lodge's side garden

A report on the new trend of tea cuisine reminds me of a 2006 trip to Taiwan's Yilang tea plantations.  The road to the tea farmer's lodge took quite a few hair-raising serpentine turns on a narrow mountain road.  Another highlight of the trip was a rustic 10-course dinner prepared by the farmer family in a patio kitchen with free range chicken, mountain fresh field greens and mushrooms. Perhaps it was the most refreshing and tasty meal experience ever for all the diners around the table.  One surprise after another, the big bowl of tea-infused soup or stir-fried vegetable with tea leaves were greeted by incessant oohs and aahs!

On the way to the tea lodge

As a cooking ingredient, wine is a common staple for many cuisines.  Tea, or tea leaves, however, is seldom used and any recipe including it might appeal to but a few adventurous cooks.  Nevertheless, there are two Chinese dishes which are worth the effort to try (at least for cosmopolitan gourmets) due to the unique use of tea.  One is "smoked tea duck", a banquet dish prized for the golden brown color and subtle smoked tea flavor imparted to the duck skin and meat.  The second one is "Lung Jing shrimp": Lung Jing the delicate, green tea sprouts from West Lake and pearly pink shrimp velvety but slightly crunchy to the bite.  In my personal opinion, both are culinary masterpieces with exquisite combination of color, texture, aroma and taste. 

For tea's parallel to coffee's use in desserts, Japanese style "green tea cheesecake" has quite a following in Asian bakeries because of its beautiful color and refined texture.  Also, green tea ice cream has become a popular item for its intricate tea flavor.

Now I am looking forward to add more memorable tea dishes to my list if the "tea cuisine" trend actually takes off!

The History of American Tea Gardens

Camellia bush in a misty morning (Descanso Gardens, Oct 2007)

Camellia collection in the Elezabethan Gardens (Nov. 2010)

Most of readers, I believe, would be hard-pressed to name a tea plantation in America except Lipton's Charleston Tea Plantation .  For me, the closest connection to American Tea Gardens would be the two camellia gardens I have visited--Descanso Gardens in Glendale (about 20 minutes drive east of LA) and Elizabethan Gardens  near Outer Banks, NC,  plus the "pride and joy" bush in a protected spot of my backyard!  From my experience, camellia plant is similar in temperament as my other favorite plant: gardenia.  Once the combination of right weather, location and soil are provided, it would proliferate without much extra attention. 

Few years ago, I dreamed of making my cup of tea from a tea plant in my own yard and had thus ordered various frost-free camellia plants from Camellia Forest Nursery .  Somehow none of the 20 plants survived after 2 years of struggle.

However, a recent article in the Word Tea News about The History of American Tea Gardens revived my hope about fresh American teas in the making from Alabama, Hawaii , SC, Washington, Oregon and Pacific NW areas.  If successful, a tea plantation tour similar to the winery tour would be my next travel pursuit!

Spring is Here!

During my search for timely cherry blossom pictures for the blog, I chanced to find one of blooming pansies (My kids used to call pansies "Happy Faces".) It was taken during my Japan cherry blossom trip in 2006--along with images of cute tea houses, artful teapot displays and gardens of historical sites. Below are few more selections to celebrate DC's cherry blossom festival week with my readers.

Cherry and Camilla blossoms in Tokyo's Asakusa Park

street view from a Kyoto's temple pavilion



light meal with tea




elegant tearoom decoration on the wall

French Pastry at Teatime

A delightful paring for the smooth Darjeeling black tea could be any French pastry longingly perused by calorie-conscious women young or old.  The eye candy picture above frequently comes to me through my favorite blog feed: ParisBreakfast by Carol Gillott.  Her March 2nd entry is quite a guide for Paris tea salons.

Timing is right for me to mention the newly relesed documentary Kings of Pastry .  One can't help but respect the devotion of French chefs' dedication to their craft.

After viewing the movie with the cine club of Alliance Française of Frederick, I surely appreciate every bite of  beautiful pastry as a work of art!

Memorable Tea Time

ideal view for afternoon tea

Hardly there is one day passing without my reading an article mentioning about tea. The title of today's NY Times op-ed piece "The Tea Maker" caught my eye.  Written by Yoko Ono, John Lennon's artistic widow, her short but poignant piece brings about the essence of her loving relationship with her husband.  It would invariably reminds many reader's own tea moments.  I recall my first formal tea as a teenager in an American teacher's house, the tea-toasting as a guest with my parents at a banquet,  the iced tea break during a garden tour with my daughter in a lovely creamy yellow room,  the rustic style tea tasting at the terrace where tea was produced, an elaborate high-mountain tea tasting prepared by the farmer's son with radiant happy face..... Occasions vary and long past, but the pleasant memories are refreshingly alive.

Winter Garden

archway view of the formal garden



winter camellia shrub with profuse flowers

My recent Thanksgiving break at Outer Banks, NC brought me a surprise which I longed to encounter: winter blooming camellias at Elizabethan Gardens.  So many varieties were showing their unique beauty just like model displays seen on nursery catalogs!  Better still, I could smell the fragrance and see the shrubs in established form with glossy leaves (they shine like polished shoe tips).

Another surprise was to learn how to prune myrtle tree French style "pollarding" : topping the branches at same spot every spring before new growth.  The tree forms unique knuckles where new growth sprouts for summer blooming branches.  The picture on top highlights the contour of a well pruned myrtle tree.  More garden views below.  Enjoy!

entrance cove to the garden

view of Atlantic ocean from garden gate

Chinese Tea in French Garden

Lalique Compiegne Bowl (in leaf design)

I chanced to discover a fascinating tea blog by a French resident in Taiwan.  He diligently writes (alternately in English and French) on my favovite subjects: Taiwan Oolong tea tastings, tea arts (display, music, tea wares) and above all: tea outings!  The July 24th, 2009 entry is esp. a timely complimentary read to my last blog.

What's to your liking for the style of tea service?

tranquil Chinese style with poetic flair,

tea tasting with fellow tea connoisseur,

weekend dim sum accompanied by oolong tea,

tea in the garden,

afternoon tea British style  ,

or thé a la Français at an outdoor café?

For me, the answer is all the above!  To find out more on the pursuit of tea enjoyment in England, here is an article about the tea devotion British style.  As for views of delightful Parisian tea settings,  ParisBreakfast (esp. June 30 and July 7, 2010 entries) will surely feed you often by images of well dressed pastries.