A full day in oversized Guangzhou means you won’t make more than 5 stops (x hours) at a couple of tea shops with x great teas, and then you’ll be scrambling to find the right one for you in xxx plethora of shops with teapots, place settings, tea seas, … the one for you. The long streets never end, and we haven’t walked a tenth of them…
It’s a place full of surprises, different qualities, attitudes…
On one street you can enjoy a fresh Dragon Well from Xi-Hu (with the most distinctive umami flavor I’ve ever had) and 2 streets away a shop selling pro tools for tea processors (packers, vacuums, roasters, …) is packing bagged tea for another client. Similarly, there are teas for tens of Yuan, but also for thousands… Here too, quality does not necessarily correspond to price, marketing and the interest of the whole world in selected famous tea places are also at play.
Wouldn’t do without extreme contrasts
Lots of small shops are fancy (one could almost say with a posh or glamour touch), others are completely shabby and unexpectedly, it’s impossible to say that quality tea is only in the fancy ones or vice versa.
An interesting tidbit for tea drinkers: The prices quoted for the teas are, thanks to an unwritten rule, always per 500 grams (this applies to Canton and Futien – I have visited those, so I can confirm it here myself). In Yunnan, on the other hand, prices are calculated per 1,000 grams of tea…
Thanks to a great guide (thanks Tom), we had no shortage of that quality tea… (X times great teas from Wyui, where we will arrive in 14 days, Dragon Wells of various top grads, great Lapsang reds (smoked and not), …) we might not even go to sleep tonight as we overdid it:))
Photos and videos will be added gradually – internet at the hotel is hell for emails 😉
