Day 3 started with a coffee in a butchers shop with a restaurant attached. All restaurants have free coffee machines in them, serving paper cups of very sweet, fairly light coffee. This apparently is the most popular type in Korea, and very popular amongst sweet toothed American tourists. This led to a conversation about the fact that Korean students make do with cheap food but go to Starbucks for expensive coffee. It was explained to me that there is something aspirational about buying something they can’t really afford. From here we travelled to Hadong : Korea’s second biggest producer of tea. Producers here tend to be very independent in their set up and style and tend to be smaller in size. There are many teahouses attached to gardens run by the farmers. The steep mountainous slopes are covered with little patches of tea. The scene below like a postcard.
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Key to Hadong’s good tea is the fact that it lies on granite (pictured below). Granite holds water well and therefore any water does not collect in the soil but enters the rock. This in turn leads to the roots of the tea plant growing to around 5m as they go down beneath the granite rocks under the surface. This also brings more minerals into the plants.
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The plants in this area originate from ones planted 500 years ago from China. In fact across the valley is where the first tea was introduced to Korea in 828 by King Heungdeok. More about this in the book!
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My first stop was to visit Goyunsanbang, a farmer with 1.1 hectares of land, 0.5 hectare of it cultivated tea and the rest wild tea bushes. He produces nokcha (green) and ‘fermented’ tea. As mentioned previously and to avoid confusion, we in the west commonly refer to this as tea that has been oxidised
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This year Goyunsanbang produced just 2.4kg of Nokcha much of which was preordered by his customers. I was lucky enough to pick up 80g of this quite incredible tea, some of which will be available at the teahouse on my return. I am yet to understand the process fully, but i is a pan fired tea much like Chinese Long Jing that he has made to be brewed using boiling water in the typical Korean style. This is made from original Chinese origin wild tea plants of two different unnamed varieties. Goyunsanbang hand picks one bud and a leaf no more than 2.5cm in length. Every 1kg picked will provide 160g of finished tea
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The tea is picked in the late afternoon and then withered in front yard. This is because he believes if there is no dew on the leaf it will give a better flavour.
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What made this tea extra special was that it was picked and processed on the 20th April. This is, according to the Korean calendar, the last day of producing Ujeon. Ujeon indicates a window of five days when the tea should be picked before the rains. Gokwoo (pronounced gock oo) describes the first rain of the season (gok meaning grain and woo meaning rain) as this is the best time to plant grain. The whole Korean year is divided into 24 parts marking specific periods of time and symbolic meanings.
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The second tea I was served was Balhyocha or fermented tea. Made from the same plants as the nokcha, but using two leaves and a bud this particular one was 70-80% oxidised. Processing was described somewhere between oolong tea and black tea, from which I understood that it was not rolled as much as black tea, and not left as long. Of course it is not as simple as this but it gives an idea. Apparently processing varies widely between farmers, something Goyunsanbang would like to remedy by creating guidance for farmers
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Before being ready the tea is stored in ongii jars. These must only have previously stored grains for obvious reasons! The result is continued fermentation (oxidation) which develops the sweetness and depth of the finished tea.
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Goyunsanbang has a background in industrial design and throughout his career has had a strong interest in wood. Combining this with his passion for tea has lead him to develop beautiful tea utensils. He stated that these have to be small so as to not take over from the importance of tea in itself. He also designed his and his neighbours house which also includes a teahouse. This coincidently was to be where we were heading next. Apparently Hadong is a bit like that!
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The Hojunggeo tea house is perfectly designedly as I suspected it would be by the precision of Goyunsanbang. We apparently entered through the back door, but even this was accessed up beautiful natural stone steps and a ‘wild’ garden. Despite looking as if it was what nature intended it had been carefully planted. Already calmed by the surroundings we entered the teahouse.
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Immaculately arranged in the table was the teaware required. This teahouse specialises in high grade korean nokcha and fermented tea as well as Wuyi Rock tea (China),Taiwanese oolong and Puer. All are served using a range of small teapots in the traditional style. We had three teas, a Shui Xian, a Wuyi Dancong and a 1980’s Muzha Tieguanyin. In my time in Korea it seemed (as I have mentioned earlier) that the high end tea community (masters and drinkers) is fairly small and so a tea master like Goyunsanbang's neighbour has a great effect on style and tastes of his customers. Admittedly my trip was short though! More to explore next time!
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Adjacent to the tea house was a room filled with teaware from some of the great makers whom and I had met and a few more. One of those was a potter with a wood fired kiln who I am to meet tomorrow.
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I left the teahouse wishing I lived closer to Hadong, but enthused to introduce some of what I had experienced to our Comins audience. We drove a short distance to a traditional ‘pension’ where we were to stay for the night.
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Before some much needed sleep, however, was a barbecue accompanied by the usual delicious array of steamed and fermented vegetables which of course includes kimchi
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This was followed by a suggestion by one of the guests, a woodworker, that we travel to his studio for tea, coffee and beer. I was beginning to spot a pattern. Tired as I was I of course agreed and I am so glad that I did. He had been building his studio for around 7 years and it was an Aladdin’s cave of woodwork. Everything was wooden. The uneven block floor was made up of smooth varnished wooden pieces fitted together like a crazy jigsaw. The walls were like those in a mud hut : clad and the roof papered. Wooden lifts hung creating a lovely yellow glow.
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My host gave me a set of wooden chopsticks made from the heartwood of a Persimmon tree (so called Korean Ebony). This makes them darker. I was truly honoured to receive them, despite the fact that it was a partial joke on my chopstick skills. In my defence normal korean chopsticks are flat and metal. A lot Korean food is steamed and therefore slippery...
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After a lot more tea and a coffee (I know...but actually very nice) we returned to sleep. This was my first experience of the usual way, which is a thin futon mat on the floor. Not good for my mattress loving back, but I’m sure I would get used to it given time. What I couldn’t get used to was sleeping on a heated floor, [a common feature apparently].
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Next : Day 4 : To the wood Fired Kiln, the home of Mr Ahn & an evening with Hadong tea farmer Seo Jung Min
Great blog !