Tea for Two in Guilin

Monday, March 26

Tea for Two in Guilin                    

We had an early breakfast and then disembarked the ship accompanied by a rousing band send-off compliments of the Lianna crew. We had arrived in Chongqing, which was new name for the old Nanking. The city of 32 million is a transformed modern river port that actually has a history spanning 3000 years. Again numerous new construction to see but this time a bit more interspersed with older, traditional structures. Also there are a large number of porters with bamboo poles. There was a noticeable lack of bicycles but this was easily explained because of the topography.  Mountain bikes would have a hard time on these towering hills.

There are many rivers in the city and all are tributaries of the Yangtze. The presence of so much water makes the city quite foggy especially in the winter. However, we only found drizzle on our visit. I understand that there is an average of 80% humidity and temperatures can reach 113 degrees in the summer. Perfect for growing rice but I’ll take more moderate temps and the light rain.

At one time, this city was the capitol of China and was an important hub during World War II. Its history is tied closely to the United States as General Chennault chose this as headquarters for the all volunteer American pilots who fought with the Chinese against the Japanese.  We visited the famous Flying Tiger Museum and saw the home of Gen. Chennault and learned about the training and advising (of Chinese pilots) he provided when the government was headed by Chiang Kai Shek.

Flying Tigers

After this museum visit and the opportunity to buy more souvenirs, we went to yet another lovely airport where we boarded a Xiamen airline flight south to Guilin. After a particularly turbulent flight, we stepped into 73 degree weather ( our warmest yet) and onto another bus for the ride into the city.

Waiting at the airport

What?

Along the way, we stopped for lunch and had the local specialty of noodles with chicken and vegetables and some things that were undetermined. Even us uneducated Americans recognized the outcroppings of karst that mark the region and are so ubiquitous to Chinese paintings.

Downtown Guilin

 Guilin, a city of 700,000, is located in a subtropical area in proximity to the China Sea. The karst 
( limestone) “hills” are up to 300 meters high and were formed 300 million years ago in the ocean and, when the ocean receded, were left in all their beauty. They have been immortalized by Chinese painters for thousands of years. They now are also valued for their deposits of copper and iron.

Light show

Entrance to Reed Flute Cave

Inside the cave

After lunch, we were whisked to the Reed Flute Cave-a cave nine million years old. It was opened to the public in 1962 but has been used by centuries by the local inhabitants for storage and was made even more famous because of the book, The Joy Luck Club.  The cave was pretty amazing and was complete with a light show but it seemed we were rushed through and back to the bus so we could venture out to the Guilin Tea Science Research Institute. Most memorable sight at the cave visit was the water buffalo horn “treasures” we spied on the way out. Unfortunately, for once, not enough time to shop.

Traveling through the city to the Tea Institute, we were struck by the huge number of motor scooters. 

Just a few of the many....After seeing vast numbers of cars in other cities, it was startling to view a sea of brightly colored scooters often carrying a driver and more than one passenger precariously perched on the back. Even little children were piled up on the scooters.

Local tea pickers

Tea fields

Tea processing chart

The Guilin Tea Institute, founded in 1965, is nestled on flat land on the north side and at the foot of the stark mountains. The plantation is about 40 hectares and contains 250 tea plants. There was much to learn about tea and the process by which it becomes drinkable and we plunged right in just after we donned what we thought were the hats worn by the “pickers”. Only after we all had taken photos were we told that what we thought were hats were actually the flattened baskets used to hold the tea leaves as they are picked. Crazy Americans!

The area itself was the home to a royal tea garden from the Ming Dynasty 400 years ago.  Tea facts: Tea needs both water and humidity and the same kind of tea bush can make different kinds of tea depending upon the leaves, fermentation process or if the spike of the plant is used. The spike is the part rendering “white tea”.  Compressed tea, which is delicious to me, has all the leaves chopped up with flowers and lichee, which make it naturally sweet.

After watching the demonstration of how the fresh leaves are heated, dried and generally prepared for consumption, we moved to a large room to have the tea ceremony explained by our host.  During the ceremony, we gleaned much information about tea. 

Acacia trees are the source for green tea and one must pick the leaves with flowers before 10:30 am , let the leaves mixture rest overnight and then pick out the flowers. Evidently this process must be completed 2 or 3 times before the tea leaves can make good green tea. It is essential to use a porcelain pot to brew green tea. (The composition  of the brewing pot is  according to the kind of tea being brewed.)

There are fermented teas like oolong and non-fermented like white and green. For non-fermented, one should not boil the water nor steep the tea. It is important to always make the non-fermented in a glass pot but use a clay pot for the fermented type. With either kind, technically, you throw away the first pouring of the tea and cover the leaves with water again to make the “drinkable” tea. One can use the fermented tea leaves or the compressed version five times before discarding and you can use the non-fermented leaves three times in one day. Therefore, there is very little waste when drinking tea.

Chinese add neither sugar, lemon nor cream to tea but prefer to drink it as it is. The cup is held very delicately and differently for men and women. We were admonished to consume the tea in tiny sips “not like a water buffalo”!  Surprisingly,  tea leaves are not very perishable and compressed tea is called longevity tea as it can keep for 50 years.

Hotel lobby

After the ceremony and the purchases that we had to ship home, we finally went to the hotel for this locale. The Royal Garden Hotel, located right on the Li River, was lavish with many amenities.

However, we soon learned that though the hotel was on a first class street, the street behind the hotel was probably third class!

Dinner was not included this night so we opted to join Owen for a local experience. We left the magnificence of the Royal Garden and walked less than a block to see how the other people lived. Garbage was piled in the streets and the streets themselves were populated with what appeared to be some unsavory characters. Nevertheless, we trusted Owen and he led the ten of us to a hole-in-the-wall spot that we certainly would not have tried on our own.

The meal was memorable at least with several courses we couldn’t quite identify but of the three that we could:  one was a rabbit carcass that must had been stretched out and then cleavered into two inch pieces before being thrown in a stew pot. Actually, the mixture was tasty but a little strange in appearance.

The second was duck that definitely included pieces of esophagus and heavens knows what else…might have been blood vessels, as the pieces resembled round pasta but were a rubbery texture. This dish had a very unfamiliar flavor and Judy and I mostly didn’t consume it but Paul and Ted gamely ate it.

The third course was fish that, presumably, was caught in the local river. At this point, I was filling up on the old standby, rice.

Ted was brave!

Overall, this meal won the award for “most unusual” and the restaurant was quaint to say the least including having a roll of what appeared to be toilet paper as the napkins.  

Judy eating rice

So much for living like the locals, I was ready to return to my room overlooking the hotel swimming pool and tennis court.