It seems hard to believe that another year has flown by so quickly, but yes it is once again time for the events celebrating Korea’s ancient tradition of excellent green teas. The key Goku date that separates the picking of first-class ujeon-cha from second-class sejak-cha passed a month ago on the third full moon, and by now these premium teas have been hand-roasted, dried and packaged, ready for us to enjoy.
Next weekend at the place where Korea’s own tea-growing traditions began in 828, outside the entrance to Ssanggye-sa Temple in Jiri-san’s Hwagye-dong Valley, Hadong County will hold its Green Tea Festival. This is one of my personal favorite annual events and one of Korea’s best and most authentic cultural/scenic tourism-destinations; it grows notably bigger every year. It’s mysterious to me that they don’t have any information in English up yet (there are links, but they don’t work)… {sigh}… They do have a beginning-attempt at a general site in English on their green tea, at least. But it really is a worthwhile event, where you can sample dozens of very high-quality teas, learn all about their history and modern production, and purchase them at wholesale prices — all in a spectacular National Park setting. It runs from Wednesday, May 21st through Sunday the 25th this year. If the weather stays as good as it has been recently, this will be really great once again.
If you can’t make it down there, the fourth annual “Tea World Festival” exhibition will held in a hall at the COEX center in southern Seoul on June 5th-8th (including the Memorial Day holiday on Friday), with hundreds of exhibitors offering every imaginable kind of tea, usually at excellent discount prices, and plenty of free samples offered. Ceramic and woodworking artists also display plenty of amazingly-beautiful tea-wares to tempt the pocketbook. A great chance to stock-up this year’s supply.
A really good web-site that provides near-complete information from elder expat expert Brother Anthony (An Son-jae), including detailed brewing instructions, in very readable English, can be found right here. I highly recommend his new book The Korean Way of Tea (from Seoul Selection) for in-depth knowledge and enjoyment. Raise a cup to health and enlightenment…
5 Comments
The Co-ex exhibition really is great. I bought nothing but Jiri-san green tea last year and it is wonderfully fragrant!
I will go again this year.
P.S. Take cash when you buy since they do not do credit cards.
Between the Jiri-san festival and the COEX expo, which one has the hottest green tea promo girls?
Man, you *know* the festival is the shiz; too many bald-headed do-umi at Co-ex. Maybe they were monks . . .
Probably. It seems that racy-clad promo-girls is the one element Korean green tea is still missing…