A rainy day in Wuxi. I started the day emailing people and reading about my beloved Lobos and their lack of defense!! Another defeat, this time at home. Oh woe is me! I decided to make some tea, to console myself. Ever since Wang Jun introduced me to Mr He, pronounced like you are clearing your throat with a hard H and a U, I have developed a whole new appreciation for tea. Drinking tea in China is like drinking wine in Italy. Unlike the teas I used to drink back home, these teas are complex and aromatic. Granted, the teas back in the states were to drink only if I ran out of coffee. Or occasionally I would drink a cup of tea, mostly Earl Grey just for a change. But let's face it. Coffee is king in the States. Sometimes I think about my coffee in the morning. I miss the rich hot syrupy brown drink so thick you could stand a spoon up in it. With a little sugar it's like candy. Oooooh, so good. Now, I am in China. I think, tea here is like coffee is there, different varieties different tastes no biggie. Taste one green tea you pretty much taste them all. I see a wall of teas in glass jars at the local Wall Hell so I buy some green tea because this is what I think Chinese tea is all about, more or less mass produced for the consumer. OMG was I so wrong on so many levels. What a rube, a bumpkin a no nothing! Mr He, he schooled me. Mr He, it turns out, is not only a sculptor of stone and an accomplished zither er, he is a master of teas. Or as Wang Jun likes to call him, the tea doctor! Everyone ought to have someone like this in their home though I think you already know of someone who thinks of him or herself as a self proclaimed expert in what ever they think they are expert in. Yet, now that I have spent some time with the tea doctor I can say he really does know his teas and the vessels he stores and pours his tea from. This is someone that lives and breathes teas. I don't think I have ever met a coffee doctor with as much zeal for coffee as Mr. He has for his teas. I digress though. If it wasn't for Mr He I would have never gone to the bamboo forest, nor drank copious amounts fine tea out of little porcelain cups held tenderly between ones fingers like displaying a butterfly just caught. I never would have met Mr. Wu or Mr. Wang or had an exquisite lunch of snails and chicken feet in a ramshackle building at the top of the bamboo forest. It was Mr. He that introduced me to han cha, Chinese black tea, even though he speaks no English, and my Chinese was just as bad and that even though my Chinese is coming along I was a mute the day we went to the village on the edge of the forest to view Mr. Wu's fine brown clay tea pots he hand crafts for thousands of yuan a piece. We went because of Mr. He. All this time I thought Wang Jun and I were out to shoot pics and He was just along for the ride. Wang Jun, by the way, is one incredible person. He is truly a salt of the earth on top of being a huge Johnny Cash fan. He wagged He and me to look at pots and we all drank teas of various tastes. Red teas, black teas, green teas, oolongs and poors (pronounced purr) you name it we drank it. Wang Jun is a large reason why I am having the time of my life here. Cheers to Wang Jun!
Now, when Mr He serves tea it is an event. The day started out with me going over to Wang Juns' studio to process film. This time I did it myself the film came out looking great, I have yet to see it. I am scanning it tomorrow. I finish developing expecting to go shooting when Wang Jun gets a call from his colleagues inviting him, his wife Yi Fai and their daughter Gege (gogo) it means to chuckle, to lunch to celebrate the end of the year. We end up at a restaurant overlooking a pond where paddle boats of young couples drift through brackish water making colorful patterns with their boats. We sat and were served twenty or so dishes half of them I couldn't pronounce or figure out what was in them. We drank rice wine, terrible stuff, Wang Jun got drunk, I drank enough to satisfy the men at the table that I was not a wimp and we were off to Mr. He and his tea. Every time I meet Mr He it reminds me of the bamboo forest. Hundreds of miles of bamboo thirty feet in the air, shafts of green, thousands of them inches apart from each other swaying in the wind together. Being on top of the mountain, the wind bit in the shadows, We took refuge in a restaurant no bigger than a closet made up of many little closets of tables and chairs. It all seemed so hastily put together these rooms. Nothing connecting them together but the walls they shared. To get from one room to the kitchen you had to walk outside. Bathrooms were an outhouse with a hole in it. no running water. Snails came first. Everyone looked to me to see if the American would dare. I so dare. I popped one in my mouth and tried unsuccessfully to extract the morsel from its domain. It's a tongue and suck thing is how it was explained to me. Push one end of the shell in with your tongue and suck the little guy out from the other end. Nature is just amazing. The snails were wok ed in a spicy chili sauce. Next came vegetables with bamboo shoots and then the chicken soup with feet. Delicious. We had a meat dish and watermelon to finish it all off. We came to see the Buddest Temple there, but I think lunch was much more interesting. I am not really interested in statues and shrines, never have been. But food, that is something all together different and to have the opportunity to eat something odd and exotic that is also delicious, I am right there. If lunch was the end of it, I would have said fine, good time, but we jump back into the car and head down to the village to visit Mr Wu. Mr Wu is a true artisan of brown clay tea pots. He studied the fine art on his own and now is well known in the region as the best brown clay tea pot maker in the area. This part of Juangsu Provence is famous for its tea and tea pots. We sat in Mr Wu's garden for several hours drinking black tea served by Mr. Wu. Sipping out of porcelain cups, Mr He and he waxed poetic about the pots, the tea, the world et all. Wang Jun stopped drinking tea about the twentieth cup of tea. I drank and drank, I didn't know if I would have insulted my host. So i drank tea. We drank and viewed Mr Wu's work and ooood and awed about how light and symmetrical his pots were, and then, drank some more. By the time we left I had been to the bathroom several times for extended visits. If that had been the extent of the day I would have said awesome! No way Mr He had one more place to go that day. The sun was beginning to set and everyone was getting tired and I think we were all ready to go home. However, we stopped in Ying xi at another artisan friend of Mr He's and watched him make a tea pot for us! Incredible! Ok so taking that extra moment was worth it. It usually is. This friend is a teacher and was getting ready to leave to teach the fine art of tea pot making to others at a university in Nanjing. For him to take the time to make a pot for us was a treat! The day was a day of treats for me. It was one of my very first impressions of China and Wangs friends and now I am sitting in Mr He's living room having tea. We drank seven or eight different teas. All different, all with unique tastes and smells. His green teas were light, sweetly aromatic with hints of honeysuckle and flowers. All were oolong teas from different areas of China. Green teas are the energy drink whereas black teas are robust and macho! Fermented and stored sometimes for years, these teas are rich like the earth and are used to warm you and help with your digestion. Medicinal and tasty too! I can not think of a better way to spend the afternoon than drinking wonderful tea inside warm and toasty while watching the winter winds blow outside.
