Making Green Tea

At the Green Tea Festival in a very small town called Hadong we got the opportunity to take part in the process of making green tea. It's really quite simple. First you have to roast the tea leaves in a very hot, big bowl-shaped thing that has a fire burning under it. You have to be sure to toss the tea leaves around while this is happening so not to burn them. We could see the leaves lose life and shrivel up.

Next, the tea leaves are dumped onto a big piece of dry cloth and with your dry cloth gloves you scrunch and roll the leaves around to break all the outer cells of the leaves so that once you make the tea the inside of the leaves will easily be released into your hot water.

And lastly, the leaves are placed on what looks like a screen door and placed on a rack for a few days to dry. To participe, it cost us each $5 and we got a small package of tea made by the previous people. I wonder who is drinking the tea I made?