A Trip to China — Verse 1

Composed by Yue Yang

When I accepted the assignment to visit our paper specialist team and their factory, I did not yet know what kind of journey I was signing up for. A business trip, I thought. To a city known for the picturesque West Lake and its sprawling tea farms. In the beginning, it seemed simple enough—before I began to unearth the city’s layers like an onion, each skin more intricate and mysterious than the last.

I was born in China, raised in Beijing, and spent twelve years in the capital, until my life took a southern turn. I remember my father’s voice, rich with the weight of history, recounting tales of China’s five-thousand-year past as we sat together, cups of tea in hand. It was always tea, never water. As a child, I was consumed by it—jasmine green tea, with its fragrance that enveloped you like silk, its taste a soft whisper of something both ancient and eternal. The vapor from that tea seemed to shroud the world in a veil of pale green, casting everything in a dreamlike haze. And so, my love for tea, and my understanding of Chinese history and culture, grew and finally seeded behind the shades created by the smoke of boiling leaves.

And so it was that whenever I had the chance, I longed to return to China, to reconnect with my heritage and seek out the stories hidden beneath the surface of fast fashion, commercial goods, and all the noise of the trendy world. This time, though, the business trip morphed into something else entirely: a pilgrimage, a walk through time, a slow unfolding of the connections between my past and my present, between my roots and my work as a designer at Somage.

"Our Qing dynasty cannot exist without its Emperor!" To which Qianlong, ever the wit, responded, "The emperor cannot exist without his tea."

Hangzhou, the city of Longjing, is nestled between undulating hills of tea fields, where the land has been carved and tended for centuries. This is a place that thrives not only on the tourism surrounding West Lake but, more importantly, on its tea. Longjing tea has a history that spans hundreds of years, but it was during the Qing Dynasty that it achieved its most famous status.

Emperor Qianlong, who was renowned for his fondness for leisure, often traveled to Longjing village for the tea. There is a story, as there always is, that when he was about to hand over his throne to his son, the chancellor implored: "Our Qing dynasty cannot exist without its Emperor!" To which Qianlong, ever the wit, responded, "The emperor cannot exist without his tea." And so it was that I found myself in one of his favorite tea spots, tracing the same path that he once walked.

The village itself felt like a forgotten pocket of time, far removed from the glossy towers of modern cities. It was a place where my digital devices were rendered almost irrelevant, as if the very rhythm of the world slowed down. The houses here were not mere structures; they were designed with purpose—gardens crafted for tea drinking. Every home sold tea, and tea snacks, and if you ventured far enough, you’d find yourself at the community center, a grand tea-tasting hall where Gaiwans were placed carefully in front of each seat, and where visitors could sip and linger in the moment. The village was waiting, always waiting, for anyone who sought the solace of a cup.

As we climbed into the mountains, there were 18 small streams winding their way up the slopes, each one leading you closer to the peak, where the revered Shi Feng Longjing tea is grown. My parents had visited this very village some thirty years ago. My father, a doctor with a kind heart, had once helped a local, and in return, was gifted tea from the very tip of the mountain. "It was the best green tea I’ve ever tasted," they both recalled with a mixture of fondness and nostalgia.