This post is my very belated continuation of the article on the Mungyeong Tea Bowl Festival, which we published last summer. It basically continues the narration of our relatively short trip to South Korea which we undertook with my friend – ceramist Petr Novák in spring 2010.
After the Mungyeong Festival, Peter and I took a bus to the south of the Korean peninsula. Our destination was the town of Hadong at the foothill of the famous Jirisan Mountain and the biggest Korean national park – the Jirisan National Park. There is one of the most famous tea growing areas in Korea there. It was there, near the Ssanggye-sa monastery, where the state official Kim Daeryum planted – as early as 862 – the first tea plant seeds, smuggled into the country from the neighbouring China. This is not the biggest tea estate, nor does it have the biggest production, but some of the best Korean teas are produced there. They are usually processed manually, mostly coming from semi-wild tea plants growing in the shade of bamboo groves.
We arrived to the town of Hadong after a few hours of travel. With a few hints for finding our way, which Petr got from his acquaintance Matthew from Mattchasblog (http://mattchasblog.blogspot.com), we came across the first “petty” problem – no one spoke English there. After many humorous situations and thanks to the Korean helpfulness, we finally found the recommended Institute of Hadong Green Tea (http://www.hgreent.or.kr/). After a while, we managed to find a translator and to clarify what we wanted. Finally, director Lee Jong Gug took care of us, he arranged for a visit to the green tea research institute, tea plantations and many other local attractions. At that point, we had no idea that it would be a busy schedule for the entire following day.
We set out in the morning with the director, his assistant and a very friendly translator Gee Daem. All the tea-related events take place in the Hwagae Valley, about twenty miles from the town. On our way, we made a stop in the green tea research institute. The modern building of the institute was located directly amongst the tea plantations. Another guide with his assistant arrived and we already became quite a respectable delegation. The vestibule of the building and adjacent rooms were used for presentations and we got a detailed explanation on the activities of the research institute. Its main objective is tea applications in various industries, mostly in the food industry. But we also saw how tea is added to dogs’ and cats’ food, we saw eggs laid by hens fed with tea, different uses of oil extracted from the tea plant seeds. We were also presented with the efforts of making tea the beverage of the general public. They create more or less successful prototypes of various instant and chilled drinks, bag teas or products for beverage vending machines. The institute also partly supports marketing and sale of loose teas from this area. All Hadong teas are sold in identical packaging, distinguishing harvest types by several colours (first flush Ujeon – blue, second flush Sejak – khaki green, third flush Junjak – golden yellow and the following Daejak – light green), which you know from our website. These packs may only be used for tea from farmers who had it examined by an inspector from the tea institute.
The following tour through the many laboratories of the institute led us into a world few would connect with tea. Unfortunately, the lack of time and the language barrier prevented us from getting to know this world better. For real enthusiasts, here is the link to the Institute of Hadong Green Tea website, in Korean only – http://www.hgreent.or.kr/.
We travelled a few miles to a small tea factory, which processed lower sorts of loose tea, particularly intended for tea bags. The factory shined with cleanliness. Most of its equipment came from Japan. But we also saw machines from Taiwan, China and even one small Indian roller, which did not seem to fit in altogether. Our attention was brought to one of the few Korean devices – quite an interesting optical sorter of leaves (all sorting machines I had seen so far were mechanical, letting the leaves fall through various sieves). The tea-bag packing line almost looked like a laboratory. Unfortunately we visited the factory during its downtime and we did not see the tea processing.
From the factory, we went to the Ssanggye-sa monastery, which is the centre of the whole region. Next we would visit bamboo-shaded tea plantations, see a demonstration of hand processing of the tea directly at a farm and of course visit the thousand-year tea tree…
to be continued… (hopefully earlier than in six months)
