July 14th: Dian Hong

More lush countryside as we drove north passing through terraced fields of rice and tea.  After checking into our hotel we drove to Dian Hong, a large tea company specializing in black tea.  We toured their museum and enjoyed many cups of tea while Austin talked business and setup a factory tour for us the following day.  Afterwards we went to their tea institute and saw a field with 71 rows of different tea bushes!  It was amazing to see the difference between them, even though they were all “tea” and had the serrated edges, many of them looked vastly different.  This research institute has over 200 varietals of tea which they are studying.

Dian Hong owners took us out for a fancy dinner and afterward we did some more exploring around the city.