Today was our turn to visit Maokong gondola and tea plantations. After riding the subway to Maokong, we boarded a “crystal” gondola (glass floor) for a 4km ride up into the mountains. The ride was almost 30 minutes long. Morning clouds limited our view a bit but that would change once we were on the mountain.
As we ate lunch at the top, the skies turned blue and you could start to see downtown Taipei. The restaurant offered dishes infused with tea flavors, including a beef with green onions dish that all the carnivores in the group agreed was excellent. And Ms. Bee also met up with us to say hi to her students, and toast them with ice tea.
The Maokong hillside is covered in different tea plantations. The higher elevation and weather is ideal for oolong tea. So our next stop was to Tea Master Chang Nai-Miao memorial tea house. Here we took a class on how to brew tea and tasted and compared three different varietals. The class was taught by the great granddaughter of Master Chang, who is credited with bringing tiekuanyin (a particular preparation of oolong the area is known for) tea from China to this area in the late 1800’s.
The weather really started to heat up as we left, to hike towards Zhangshan Temple, our final stop.
This was our longest voyage so far. Everyone was pretty beat after hiking in the heat. We’ll shower and sleep well tonight. In the morning we visit Jieshou Junior High for our first meet and greet with the home stay students!