Sunday, June 29, 2008

Tea Ceremonies

We were invited to tea with Dr. Zhang Hong (the Dean of IT at the polytechnic) and her daughter Little Penny, and her good friend Zheng Jin, a computer whiz, who also works at the polytechnic and her son Ha Ha. We gladly accepted, thinking we'd still have time to get our marking done, and were then told that they would collect us at 9am on Sunday morning!!!

This duly happened and we were driven by Hong to her favourite spot at Mei jia wu (the Dragon Well tea village, where we went in Spring with Yu Ling).

On arrival, several bags of fruit and goodies were taken from the trunk of the car and carried to Hong's favourite table on the Hotel patio looking at the mountains and the tea estates. The fruit was given to the waitress who proceeded to wash it and put it on plates on the table, and who returned with a thick menu book.A whole menu of tea. Several pages, in fact, of all different kinds of tea. Hong chose two or three and we proceeded to eat the fruit and goodies while Dragon Well tea was poured - in glasses because it is 'pretty' tea and the leaves are a lovely colour.

We ate and drank and chatted away until Pu'er tea was brought, again in glasses because it is made of two teas, Oolang tea, which sinks to the bottom of the glass and Chrysanthemum tea which floats on the top - again a very 'pretty' tea.


Next came Guan Yin tea, which is a Taiwanese tea contianing iron (and very healthy)..... and party time. It was like playing house as a child with my doll's tea set. For this kind of tea there is first of all a clay/pottery teaset consisting of a bowl upon which sits a sieve-like tray so that the water can drip through; a small teapot full of tea, a smaller teapot and 4 very tiny teacups with no handles. First take the larger pot of Guan Yin tea and pour it over the smaller purple sand teapot and rinse it out, then do the same with the little cups to warm them. Do NOT be careful about keeping the water inside the pot or cups, just let it flow all over everything. Next, pour the tea from the larger pot into the smaller purple sand teapot. Then pour the tea from the smaller pot into the tiny cups and drink and enjoy. Refill the larger teapot with boiling water and repeat the process as many times as you wish, refilling the larger small teapot from the thermos of boiling water now placed by the waitress beside you. Each time you must repeat the whole procedure. I had fun but it did seem like the tea parties of my childhood.


Here is the happy group after tea going for a walk into the tea estate and looking at the scenery. This was so that some clearing up could be done at the table before we returned to enter a delightful private dining room for LUNCH. Again Hong had chosen the wonderful meal which as usual contained many different dishes including a lovely fish soup and stone fungus (tastes like mushroom) which is a rare delicacy being found only in Hangzhou.




These two women are 'best friends', both of them having extremely busy and successful husbands, who work even on Sundays, so that they do a lot of things together with their children, even going on holiday together with the children while the husbands continue their work. Both own companies one a software company the other is a land developer. As it was still school time the children sat at another table and did their homework with the mums interrupting their conversations now and then to go and help them. Both women have electronic devices which help with their English, thank goodness, and here we are, stopped on our walk, as they search for the right English word in our conversation. Jin's is particularly interesting in that she can write on the screen and it translates for her and even says it for her in good English. She loves the device and carries it with her all the time. She plans to visit us when we return to Canada so many of you will get to meet her. She and her family have already traveled to Europe and Australia and Japan - more than once, so I am sure she will make it in the not too distant future.

We got home around 3.30 and 'coming for tea' has taken on a whole new meaning for us.

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