Tea blossom…

This time in Hangzhou Carol brought me some tea bags, not really tea bags in real sences, but small pouches where one tea pot worth of tea was there which contained dried tea blossoms with good quality green tea.

On infusion these tea blossoms were swimming in the liquid tea so beautifully and were an additional attraction to drink that tea.

Long live the chinese ideas, they can use anything and everything for presentation of things, and thus save a product of tea bush which was going waste so far.

Tea from the land of Buddha…

On this thursday the 23rd May, we recast our Bihar Tea Plantation Association (BTPA) and made its headquaters in Kishanganj and Siliguri to serve its members in a better way. Raju Daftari will head it and Neem Chandji Mitruka and myself will be two vice-Chairman with Mohinida as its secretary, operating out of TIPA office.

We have roped in Gopal Agarwal, sitting MLA from Thakurgunj, as our patron, to help our voice reach to the right people in Patna, like Nitish Kumarji & Sushil Modiji as well as utilizing the BIA (Bihar Industries Association) and CII clout in Bihar to make sence of tea industry in Kishangunj district, which has been lacking in Government support so far, though it was they themselves who invited us there.

Xiamen…………

Though I stayed in Xiamen this time overnight only, but the Sichuan earthquake made my memory to never to forget this ever. This was my second visit to the Fujian city. I stayed in Airport Garden Hotel, which had an excellent view of the sea beyond airport.

A beautiful port town, full of industry and history, as this was called Amoy when Portugese settled this colony to do trade in 1541, earlier then the Dutch, Spanish, British, French or Germans in China.

Jinhua…

The best organic tea plantation in China probably – Cai Yun Jian – tea garden is loacted 180 kilometers south of Hangzhou. As the name suggests this place is the land of gold -at least for this tea company.

Victor is my old friend from Changsha, where as Louise met me there in an tea expo. This formidable team is marketing their teas worldwide now.

Teaching tea business scientifically…

Prof. Su Zhucheng of Zhijiang Forestry University has authored a book titiled “Zhong Guo Cha Chan Ye” meaning the “Production Business of Chinese Tea” and he presented me a copy while I visited him in Lin’an at his College of Tea, which is 60 kilometers west of Hangzhou.

It is so compelling for me to learn chinese to read this book now and understand the scientific approach to the study of tea and training the students to produce better and better teas for the service of mankind.

Tea education…

In my quest to reach the best places for tea education, I visited Zhijiang University in Hangzhou and Zhijiang Forstry University in Lin’an, 60 kilometers away from Hangzhou, where I met:

Here I should not forget to mention Prof. Xu of Beijing Tea Blossom Technology Co., who allowed her assistant Carol to fly down to Hangzhou to help me visit places and infact organised these meetings and visits.

Olympics & Me…

God destines a man to have what he gets. 12th May saw me landing in Xiamen with a earth quake, but 18th was lucky when I could witness olympic torch in Hangzhou.

IGG & Tea University in Hangzhou and many other activities were on card in this 12th to 18th May 2008 trip to Xiamen & Hangzhou.

Carol gave me a wonderful company in Hangzhou.

Training the trainers…

Marjorie, Audrey, Marine & Angel were taken to Lohagarh today evening on a preliminary exposure tour, where I and Ankit gave them short introduction of tea bushes so that Dr. ID Singh and VK Khanna can start their theoritical classes to explain what is tea.

After return from China on 19th May, where I go tomorrow to attend IGG meet in Hangzhou alongwith Damodar Maheshwari, President of Jayashree Tea & Industries Ltd., I plan to expose them to tea manufacture in Azmabad tea factory.

What appears good may not be good…

My chinese teacher…

Li Qian, Monica – her english name, a Shandong girl from the small town called Heze, meaning white peony, started teaching me Chinese when she was working in Jide Textile group in Beijing. Later she was moved to their factory in Binzhou, near the Beihai end of Yellow river in northern Shandong, and then after training she is in their Qingdao headquarters looking after the sales team.

I visited her in September 2007 alongwith Prince, Gaurav Varshney, my nephew from Aligarh, for textile business. We saw the German Governor’s House there when Qingdao was under occupation during first world war.

Luck takes people to such places, which one can never dream of. This photo was taken in Suzhou, where she went recently on a vacation.

jun sheng wo wei sheng                              君生我未生

wo sheng jun yi lao                                     我生君已老

jun hen wo sheng chi                                   君恨我生迟

wo hen jun sheng zao                                  我恨君生早