Video: Chaozhou, Guangdong is called the World Tea Culture Capital. In the east of the province, it is close to the borders of Fujian and Jiangxi Provinces, making a trio of fabulous tea growing regions, with Hunan further north and Guangxi bordering to the West. Everywhere we walked, we saw people in shops hand-sorting teas leaves on low, flat tables, as you can see here. This shop, called Wenxiang (闻香 = Smell the Fragrance) has won many awards and you can see the beautiful solid jade stone tea service on the main table, for customers to taste the wares. Don’t ask how much it cost!
Different varieties and harvest-years age are in huge steel barrels. Like wine and liquor, tea gets better over time. We bought two varieties of oolong, the region’s “champagne” of teas, for our friends in Paris. While there, we spent an hour talking with this shop’s lady worker and the owner, who arrived just after the video was taken.
He proudly referred to the statue saying, “Mao Zedong is our leader!”. There is no contradiction with Mao and capitalists. Mao is all about the people succeeding. The founder of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei calls Mao his mentor. Many others do too (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2020/05/14/ren-zhengfei-founder-of-huawei-says-my-mentor-is-chairman-mao-zedong-im-not-surprised-are-you-china-rising-radio-sinoland-200515/).
Above Mao is a classic poem, written in his easily recognizable calligraphy style, using raised, 3-D characters,
沏一壶好茶，焚一封好香，在袅袅青烟与幽幽茶香中，调息精神，享受诗意生活.
Brew a pot of good tea, burn good incense, (then) in the curl of smoke and faint tea fragrance, breath (in) the spirit, and enjoy a poetic life.
Poems like this are frequently found in scholars’ studies, to grace the tea service.
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