Asia 2009 Trade and Investment Mission Blog

Our trip to China was a big success.  It was important for Indiana leaders to visit this country face-to-face and show the sincere interest in enhancing and creating business ties.  The size and scope of the delegation seemed to go a long way in making an impact during our meetings.

An influential Chinese businessman still has a token of Governor Orr's trip to China over 20 years ago sitting on his desk.  It was the last trade mission trip an Indiana governor made to China.  The importance of Indiana making this trip again shouldn't be ignored.

In addition to the wealth of economic and business benefits we've been able to establish, I have truly enjoyed observing and participating in many aspects of the Chinese culture.  As I mentioned in a previous post, tea is one of the traditions I have enjoyed learning more about.  Every place we visited in China served us tea.

During this trip, we were able to visit a vineyard-like grower of tea.  You can buy tea, taste tea, shop for anything tea related from tea pillows, to tea candy and tea marshmallows.  Anything you want in tea, they sell.

There are many aspects of the tradition of Chinese tea.  Some that I found especially interesting are:
• It takes eight hours to make two pounds of tea leaves.
• The entire procedure must be done by hand; no machines.  The Chinese believe the only way to make things well is by hand.
• If you have too much tea that is too strong, you can get "tea drunk," which is similar to alcohol drunk, where you can get a headache, a stomachache and generally don't feel very well.
• They have a tea ceremony similar to wine, where you shake it and smell it.
• There is a special way to hold your cup when you're drinking tea.  You hold the cup with your right hand and put your left hand under the bottom of the cup. 
• China does not export their highest quality tea because there's not much of it and it's incredibly expensive. 

Three common types of tea are black tea (where the tea leaves are totally fermented), green tea (where the tea leaves are not fermented at all) and oolong (which is semi-fermented).  All three have different tea plants and fermentation processes. White tea is a special variety of unfermented green tea.  Chamomile tea is considered an herb, it is not a tea.  You serve different teas at different times.  For example, black tea is in the morning and green tea is after eating.

Green tea is very low in caffeine; black tea has eight times more caffeine than green tea.  You can tell good tea by the color of the leaves and the size of the leaves.  The lighter the color and younger the leaves the better the tea.  Also, the smaller the leaves and stronger the smell the better the tea.

We were able to participate in a tasting.  They put a few tea leaves in our glasses, added a tiny bit of water, we smelled it and then swirled it around in the glass.  They then added additional water.  When they pour the water into the tea glass, the woman pouring the tea flicks her wrist three different times, very high up above the glass.  If she doesn't spill a drop of water it means you are warmly welcomed.

A very common way of saying "thank you" in Chinese tea ceremonies, business matters and in the general culture is to take your forefinger and your middle finger and hit them against the table three times. 

The Chinese don't put milk in their tea.  Milk is only for English tea, because English tea is bitter.  Green tea should be served hot or room temperature.  To slurp your tea is completely unacceptable and if you do slurp you're called a "buffalo drinker."

Chinese tea is loose.  They don't use tea bags or a strainer, so you have to manipulate drinking the tea so as not to swallow the leaves.  They always have tops to the teacups to keep it warm and it's served with washcloths in order to wash your hands.  According to the Chinese, tea bags show the worst quality of tea.  It's considered tea dust.  They compared it to drinking instant coffee.