Fuchsia Dunlop

On my last day in Hangzhou, a friend arrived at my hotel with some of that most precious of commodities – new season West Lake Longjing (Dragon Well) tea. They were some of the first leaves of the season, so new that they were not yet available on the market. I could lose myself in the scent of these delicate spear-like leaves. It is magical: green and gently intoxicating, reminiscent of fresh pistachioes. Back in London, their aroma is even more thrilling, because it takes me back in an instant to the shores of the West Lake, to its soft contours of willow and peach, to the sound of the waters lapping. (I stayed in a hotel by the lake, and every morning I walked out to its brink, looked out to the island, blurred by the mist or bright in the sunlight, and felt calm and happy.)

At home in London, I infuse the leaves in some hand-painted teabowls (gai wan), the water not too hot, inhale their gentle vapours, and sigh.

I’ll post more about the trip later – there is so much to say!

Last week I dropped in on Postcard Teas, the amazing little teashop in London run by Tim D’Offay. At the moment he has an exhibition of traditional crafts from Japan, and when I visited I met Takahiro Yagi, an artisanal maker of teacaddies from Kyoto who is the SEVENTH generation of his family to work in this business. He was showing handmade caddies made from silver, copper and brass, and lined with tin – beautiful. We drank a delicious roasty oolong tea from Wuyishan in Fujian Province – just one of the fine teas that Tim selects on his travels to China, Taiwan, Japan and India. As always, a visit to Postcard Teas felt like a tonic, and I forgot about the wind, rain and darkness outside, not to mention the frenzy of harrassed shoppers in the West End. Continue reading…

I’m ill in bed today with the rotten cold that seems to be sweeping through London. And it’s at times like these that I can’t live without my old-fashioned Chinese thermos flask. Actually I have two of them – a small one, which I use to top up a pot of Chinese tea as I work at my desk, and a large one, which is perfect not only for making Chinese tea al fresco, but also for hauling up to my bedside when I’m sick, so I can make lots of herbal tea without getting up.

Apart from being useful, these thermoses make me richly nostalgic. When I first started travelling to China, they were everywhere. I would check into a room in a remote guesthouse, weary after a bone-shaking bus-ride or a long hitch on the back of a timber truck, and a fuwuyuan would immediately bring a thermos of hot water for making tea – it felt like a welcome. Sitting with friends in their Chengdu living rooms, there would always be a thermos at hand, to top up mugfuls of jasmine tea that could last for a whole afternoon. Continue reading…