Spent Sunday wandering around the wild green tea country [Hadong Wild Tea Culture Festival, English] of Hwagye-myeon, Hadong-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do. Korea’s first green tea plantation was established near Ssanggye-sa Temple [official temple website, Korean], on the foothills of the Jiri Mountains, during the Silla era. From there, tea spread all over the nearby hillsides, where villagers have been cultivating the leaves by hand for centuries.
As someone at the Hadong Tea Culture Center told me, it’s said that if you want to look at pretty vistas of tea fields, you go to the Japanese-established plantations of Boseong, Jeollanam-do [Flickr]. But if you want to taste tea brewed from leaves picked and roasted by hand, you come to Hadong.
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I love all the different greens in that first picture.
I only regret that the proprietors of the temple had to put up a “CCTV” sign, so as to frighten off thieves and the so-called Christians that like to set fires in Buddhist temples.
I’ve tasted teas from both areas (Boseong and Hadong, along with the usual Halla-san, etc) and I would definitely rank the Hadong tea as superior in flavor to the Boseong stuff . . . it’s much more delicate tea. The Boseong stuff is good enough, but I’d take a sejak-cha from Hadong over even the best ujeon from Boseong. No knock against Boseong, which is a lovely, lovely place, but the tea just doesn’t hold up^^
How does one cultivate “wild” teas on a plantation? Also, are there any teas which are not cultivated by hand?
Thanks. Visiting those places is going to be on my list of things to do this summer.
“the so-called Christians that like to set fires in Buddhist temples.”?
Such things never happened when Park Junghee and Jun Doowhan governed the country. Christians are supposed to be civilised bunch, but obviously not in the land of the morning calm, then.
“Such things never happened when Park Junghee and Jun Doowhan governed the country.”
Both presidents were Buddhist, Park especially so. That’s why.
Well, there was also significant violence against Buddhists and Shamans and their properties/artworks under Park & Chun — some official government discrimination, too. It seemed to peak in the first decade of democracy, seems to have been declining in the second decade, haven’t heard much of it recently. But man, this is off-topic…
I’m certainly with figbash, the Hwagye-dong Valley green teas of Hadong County are definitely superior, rank with some of China and Taiwan’s best. Just not so well-known, and of course a far lower volume of it is produced…
Those interested in this topic might enjoy my own pages on that same Temple and its Hermitages, and the surrounding region:
http://www.san-shin.net/Jiri-Ssanggye-01.html
My page on the Hwagye green-tea valley is 04 in that series, and there’s a two-page photo-essay on the history and characteristics of Korea’s green tea linked to it.
That Hadong Tea Festival is really worthwhile, one of Korea’s top-10-best cultural festivals for foreign visitors (i helped to upgrade it back when i worked for the gov, and often take groups there).
AND, tea-expert Brother Anthony of Taize (An Sonjae) is going to lecture the RAS on the crucial modern chapter of Korea’s green tea history, on Tuesday March 27th! I’ll post more on that independently later.
> lirelou
> How does one cultivate “wild” teas on a plantation?
Well, you don’t. The “wild tea” they are so proud about, using in the title of their festival, are the bushes that are still actually wild up on the ridges of Samshin-bong there — the descendents of the late-Shilla/Goryeo cultivated tea-fields that “went wild” when those fields were abandoned in Joseon times. They may be the only wild tea-bushes that leaves are harvested from in the world, that i’ve heard of at least. Most of the green teas currently produced by the Hwagye-dong brands are from the kind of cultivated fields you see in that first photo, of course — some of those were started from seeds gathered from the wild bushes, tho, so can claim a pedigree back to the original 828 CE bushes… thus “wild tea” is used for PR promotion.
> Also, are there any teas which are not cultivated by hand?
Machines are used in the big plantations of India, China, Boseong, Jeju… varrying levels of chemical incesticides and fertilizers, too.
Just when is the Hadong Tea Festival suppose to occur this year?
May 17th (1st day of the Fourth Moon) through Sunday May 20th, this year.
May 17 . . . I feel a road trip coming on.