I've always enjoyed traveling; especially to new places. Being in new, unfamiliar surroundings with unexplored sights, smells and foods can be pretty exciting. I'm sitting in front of a keyboard at our home base here in Taiwan trying to absorb everything I saw and experienced in a recent 10-day itinerary in rural South-East China in the province of Fujian.
This was my first time to Fujian*. I've always wanted to go because it's kind of the... ancient Taiwan so to speak. Taiwan is mostly made up of Fujianese immigrants who speak the Min Nan dialect, the same as most of Fujian. I've of course spent a lot of time in the Taiwanese countryside so the Fujian countryside felt... normal. However, Fujian is Mainland China and not Taiwan, so there were some stark differences. I'll write more details about this later. It was a total blast!
I chose two general-area destinations in Fujian renowned for the history and quality of their teas - Wuyishan and Anxi. I'll save the details for later blogs but here's a brief introduction:
Old Tree Shui Xian plants being held up by natural made scaffolding in Wuyishan.
Lots of Aunties collecting the goods at harvest in XiangHua Xiang, Anxi.
The "Mother Trees" of Da Hong Pao Oolong above my head at Wuyishan National Park.
*In fact, I've only been to Mainland China once before - to Yunnan for our 2015 Kickstarter called "The Quest for the World's Best Teas".
Comments will be approved before showing up.