After a long day walking through the fog and the rain we headed to the local shops in China to see what local interests we could find. The street wasn’t all that long so we walked up and down a couple of times. There was a particular shop, a tea shop, that caught our attention twice. And on the second time, I am glad to say, we stopped to take a look.

We were welcomed in and asked to sit around what seemed to be a highly polished ‘tree trunk’. We were then taught how to make tea. Coming from England; I now know that it consists of more than a teabag.

As the man spoke no English I was depending on the people I traveled with to translate. But even if I understood wrongly – it was still a great evening and a good learning for all.

One thing we learnt was how to buy a teapot. Of course, you say, he did sell us a teapot but the story was well told and now we have a treasured teapot that we are happy with.

It is important  to find a teapot which allows water to run-out freely and quickly. Not just drip drip drip. You can normally tell the quality of the pot by it’s thinness – you can twist the lid slightly to hear the sound it makes. It is also worth noting that the quality of teapot makes no difference to the taste of the tea.

If you buy a clay pot then you should only use it for one type of tea otherwise you may find the taste from the old tea is transferred.

I have also discovered that the whole procedure for making tea is fairly complex. So I have drawn a chart to help. I can expand on this if anybody is interested.

Time for some tea