Wholesale Tea Market

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One of the things Dave wanted to do was to sample teas so that he could choose a couple of special blends to bring home. So we went to a wholesale tea market (which of course was on the other side of the city from the Indian restaurant (this meant more subway rides with more stairs). The taxi driver dropped us off at the area where the wholesale tea market was located. We only had 1 1/2 hours to find a tea distributor, sample teas and decide what to buy.

Dave bought his favorite tea, which is an oolong tea and Stephane and I decided the half a 1/2 kilo of renshen (geinsing) tea.

After our time in the tea market, we made a mad dash via tax back to the hostel to pick up our luggage and then make a mad dash to the train station to take the fast train to Jinan, the city Dave lives in.

We used my poor, sad, tired feet as an excuse to get onto the train before everyone else made a mad dash to the train. Then we had a nice, relaxing 3 hour ride to Jinan.

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Photos

Tea Salesperson
We sampled about 5 types of teas. I had no idea teas could taste so different! Sometimes the same tea tasted different simply because one was a better quality than the other.

green vs. oolong tea
I learned that I like a gensing tea better than a green tea. The cost was expense - but not as much if I had bought the tea somewhere else!

Beijing Fast Train Station
as opposed to the "slow" train station. This is a shiney, new station -- it's beautiful

Train Station
Very big

The Fast Train
This looks like something from a si-fi movie