On Wednesday, Makenzi, Peter, and I went to a tea shop to buy some tea. The shop owner was really nice and we had to have conversations through Peter. But the tea was very good. The tea shop owner made some oolong tea, which was much sweeter than what I remember oolong being. There is a process to making tea here in China and the tea ceremony is much different than a Japanese ceremony. I do not know all the details, but the ceremony we did was more of a casual tea that people would have with friends. First, the owner washed the tea, just by pouring hot water over it, swishing it around, and pouring out the water. She then put more water in and let that steep. The tea cups were really small and were made of glass. We had countless cups of tea, since each was about 2 sips. We only stayed about an hour, but in that time, we had a lot of good conversation about the cultural differences between America and China. At the end, I bought a tea pot, four cups, and some tea. It all cost about 120 yuan ($20).
The tea pot box.
The writing says "One can also get drunk from tea."
The other side.
The cups. Two yuan each!
All together.
The bag of oolong tea.
The tea leaves were balled up.