The Korean Tea Experience

 Today's first tour in Korea took us to a tea plantation in Boseong called Daehan Dawon. It is the most historic and the oldest tea plantation in Korea, established in 1939. It produces almost one-third of all the green tea sold in South Korea, and was opened to the public as a park in 1957, after the Korean War.

The bus ride was a long one, over an hour, but it was both scenic and an opportunity to take a nap, whichever was more to everyone's liking - except, of course, that the tour guide had to be giving us information about Korea almost the whole way.

Our first stop was for the tea tasting at the Tea Museum, Tea House and Shop called Botjae not far from the plantation. Our guide rightfully suggested we do this first as it would get busier through the day and some teas might also sell out at the shop. She explained that there are three types of green tea, the quality dependent on how large the leaves are when they are harvested. The tiniest leaves make the tea called 'Ujeon' or 'pre-rain tender buds'. This is the highest quality and is only picked before mid-April. The next type is 'Sejak' or 'early spring sparrow-beak leaves', picked late April to early May. After this come the 'regular' green teas.

We had pre-ordered a tea set on the bus and once we arrived our orders were placed and we picked up our trays. Our tray for two included the pot for brewing, extra hot water, two small cups and some Korean confections to have with it. At first we couldn't figure out what the second cup in the middle was. The instructions for preparing and drinking were a little confusing, but we finally understood that the tea should only steep for 2 minutes and then be poured into the large cup. Then more water went over the tea leaves while we drank the first pour into our small cups. It was quite interesting and delicious.

Our Ujeon tea steeping

After our tea we went into the shop and discovered that there are more uses for green tea than we had ever imagined, everything from hand cream to shampoo. And our guide suggested that we could use steeped tea leaves chopped up in pancakes or even as a facial pack. We did buy some Ujeon and Sejak loose teas to drink at home. After this interlude, we headed back to the bus and across the street to the tea plantation, Daehan Dawon.

The view of the plantation from Botjae

Once we arrived at Daehan Dawon, there was a bit of confusion about bus parking, and our driver wouldn't admit that he didn't know where he was supposed to be. Too bad that some of our other guests saw that he was using a navigation app all the way from the port. Our guide got some spotty information and it was a few more minutes, and a disembarkation and re-embarkation of the bus, to finally get us to the right place to enter the plantation for our walk.

We certainly weren't prepared for the hills at the plantation. Our guide had been instructed to take those who wanted to go to the highest point. We got most of the way up, but when the path and stairs got so steep that we wondered how we would get back down, we gave up and did our own walk along the pathways.

Small leaves on the tea plants. We were just at the end
of the Ujeon season; they were probably picking the
Sejak tea leaves by this time.

Larry making his way down the hill from a higher
path. It is quite steep everywhere!

The tea leaves are picked early in the morning, before the dew has a chance to evaporate. Huge numbers of workers come into the plantation and pick for a couple of hours every day.

It was a very interesting tour, although we had thought we'd see how the tea leaves were processed after picking, so that was a bit of a disappointment. On the way back to the bus, however, we stopped at one of the shops and bought some famous green tea ice cream and ate it as we walked.

You all know we don't like to take selfies -
except in certain circumstances!

Once we got back to the bus we had another hour and a bit to get back to the port. Time to rest our legs and try to nap a little.

Our next stop was Jeju Island. Unfortunately on the drive back from the plantation I developed a dry throat, and by the next morning it had turned into a head cold, probably related to the rainy weather in Hiroshima. We didn't really want to start giving a cold to anyone so we stayed on board, missing the Tae-kwon-do exhibition, which, according to reports was very good. Oh, well. We hoped we would both be good for the all-day tour to Seoul from Incheon.