Tea Glorious Tea 
This place is Crescent Moon oasis, the most important oasis on the Silk Road AND looking very much today as it did 700 years ago when Marco Polo enjoyed his first cup of tea, HERE in China. At the height of the Silk Road鈥undreds of thousands of tons of tea went west from here. Even today, outward bound by camel caravan, we are two perilous, dry weeks travel to the next oasis and thirst quenching water.
But that was yesterday and this is today. Several hundred kilometers south of the haunting splendor of the Gobi desert lies the lovely lake side city of Hangzhou. It鈥檚 world famous for Long Jing Dragon well Tea AND was voted by my friend Marco Polo as the most beautiful city he had ever seen. Appropriately, now Hangzhou is a UNESCO, world heritage sight.
Caressed in the nurturing embrace of mother nature鈥檚 green and fertile arms, Long Jing village lies, like a jewel, in the picturesque valley below us. This is home, as it has been for more than a thousand years, to CHINA鈥橲 鈥淕REEN GOLD,鈥 Long Jing Dragon Well Tea!
Every one here in Long Jing village literally has a hand in green tea growing and production. Every family has its own small tea plantation and every home, its own special tea processing room and small tea boutique. For generations tea has connected people with nature. It鈥檚 as though they live here in perfect harmony with nature. Tea is their life!
Consistently high demand for this superb quality green tea, in China, Asia and now around the world has brought prosperity and a high standard of living to all Dragon Well Tea growing families in Long Jing.
THE DRIVE AND JOURNEY TO WUYI鈥ut there鈥檚 much more to China鈥檚 Green Tea story and its potent health qualities as I discovered, driving the 200 kilometers from Hangzhou into the steep mountains of Wuyi. The incredible value of annual Green Tea production from this heartland of China鈥檚 ecologically pure, mountainside terraced plantations, is around US$25,000,000 per year. That鈥檚 an impressive 30% of China鈥檚 total tea output.
I never realized, until I arrived here in the mountains of Wuyi and chatted to the local growers, that the tea plant is a close relative of the Privet Hedge Bush found in many western gardens. It has smooth shiny green leaves and is one of those anomalies of the plant world鈥 a deciduous, leaf bearing evergreen called 鈥淐amellia Sinensis.鈥
