Beijing 4.3 -Dr.Tea -

Indeed another Stop for shopping, while tour guide will always set time limit for historical places visitation but they never ever DID in Factories @ Shops they brought us to. Its an open secret that they will get commission from whatever we bought. This is the worst part about traveling in a tour.



Dr.Tea is the Tea-shop that we were *forced* into, no choice as there weren't any other alternatives. Anyway, i enjoy the exhibition part as they used pretty china dolls with sweet voice to entertain us.



As usual, the main speakers knew few words of Malays to show their sincerity. They even know Teh-tarik, what a coincident... NO! Its not... its fixed with practice... LOL!

While overseas Chinese are more into coffee and western tea, china still very Chinese tea!

There are actually four grades of tea leaves.

1^st grade Bricks

2^nd grade Round

3^rd grade stumps

4^th grade scattered

How the teas are being graded has a lot to do with its picking period and the smaller the leaves the higher the value. There are also lots of others factors to be taken into consideration.

We are given to taste 3-4 types of teas, the “ma lao meat” (pluck by monkey), Pu ‘er and two others which I can’t recall.

The “ma lao meat” (pluck by monkey) is the tea that are serve in The Olympic Village, indeed a smooth and nice smelling tea. Its called “pluck by monkey” because these tea were plucked by monkey in older times as the tea tree as tall.

The *legendary* Pu ‘Er tea, the longer you kept the higher the value as the older it gets the more nutrients its absorbed. If you put the Pu ‘Er into toilet, than it will absorb the toilet smell.

Pu ‘er is so legendary that the price shoots up like rocket. One of its major *POWER* is its ability to absorb oil. Three leaves of Pu‘Er can *clean up* the top layer of oil in a bowl of soup.

In my humble opinion, a contena of pu ‘er would be able to suck up a sea of spilt petroleum?

After the explanation and testing, comes the Selling part. If they skip this part, my trip would have been perfect.

I have no intention to buy any tea because it’s EXPENSIVE and I have no time to ENJOY tea the right way.

Mrs. Lai wanna buy 2 *Round* Pu ‘Er as gifts for people, so we start to negotiate with this girls. The ‘offers’ start pouring out,

Offer A - 6packs free 1 packs + a set of tea pot. RMB400 x 6 round packs = RMB2,400… HELL NO! I aint gonna pay RM1,200 for a pack of dried leaves.

NO! I just want TWO! RMB400 x 2 round packs = RMB 800

Then come the Managresss, talk like a vixen who wanna seduce an OX.

Then come , Offer B – 3pack free 1 packs, RMB 300 x 4 = RMB1,200

I hesitated and she started to talked a bit louder, Mrs. Lai looked at me (meaning to let me make decision but the decision must be according to her will ).

I dun wanna be nag by her again for not buying her pearls and not letting her buy this and that. So gave in!

RINGGIT MALAYSIA ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED for 4 packs of 18years old dried leaves. First time in my life!



the REAL excitement about buying stuffs in China is you will wonder if you pay double ? triple ? Ten Times more the its Value?



Or



If the stuffs you bought is Genuine!



Welcome to CHINA!