My visit to Master Jiang
Recently I've been to a tea trip to Taiwan.
It was the first organized trip I've been to since I was 14. I'm usually not a big fan of organized trips abroad, preferring to organize trips my own way (hey, here's something to write about in the future :)), but this was a trip where I could visit people who share my hobby, and get to places I wouldn't be able to on my own. It was a blast.
One of the tea masters we met was a very talented person named Master Jiang.
First, he took us on a mountain hike to see where he grows his tea trees. After a nice mountainy hike we crossed a bamboo bridge that he built by himself, and arrived to a slope with a few Camellia Sinensis trees of different cultivars. Those trees were planted there, but that was the last human interference, other than plucking. Master Jiang just lets his trees grow naturally, and the nature around it to flourish. Some of the leaves have bug bites, and the area is rich with animals and plants.
Then we arrived at the ultimate man cave - A cabin that he built by himself - where we sat and tried some of his teas. "Everything in his cabin but his boots was made by him", the trip organizer told us, and that wasn't far from the truth - the furniture, the lighting, the tea (of course) and the vessels he brewed them in were made by Master Jiang. The cabin also had a few rooms, an attic and a cellar.
The teas were spectacular, and taught me an interesting lesson - sometimes, you can tell who made the tea by its characteristics. If the first tea master we met made her teas meticulously, like an artist drawing a realistic painting or a good solid state amplifier reproducing the minute details of the music, then Mr. Jiang's tea was like strokes of watercolor, or a warm tube amplifier - warm, full, special.
While drinking the teas, we had a beautiful mountainous view from a big window in the cabin, switching from green to wholly white to green again in a matter of minutes, due to fog.
I left with a memorable experience, wishing that I could become as good and invested in my hobbies as Master Jiang.
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