Boseong Green Tea Fields

Full transcript

Annyeong, yeoreobun! Yul here. Take a deep breath. Fresh green leaves! We're in Boseong, the green tea capital of Korea. It produces about forty percent of the country's tea, and the hills are striped with rows of tea bushes. Like a giant green zebra!

Tea in Korea is old. Records mention tea as far back as the seventh century, in the kingdom of Silla. But here's a twist: during the Joseon dynasty, tea fell out of fashion, partly because it was linked with Buddhism. Large-scale tea farming in Boseong only took off in the 1930s.

The most famous plantation here, Daehan Dawon, has a real comeback story. It was started in 1939, during the Japanese colonial period, and later fell into ruin. Then, in 1957, Jang Young-seob bought the run-down plantation and brought it back to life. Today, about five point eight million tea plants grow there in neat rows. I tried counting. I gave up at twelve.

You walk in along a road lined with tall cedar trees, about one kilometer long, and then the hills suddenly open up in front of you. Daebak! Climb to the viewpoints at the top, and on clear days you can even see the sea.

Yul's tip! Green tea ice cream at the main plaza is a must. In May there's a tea festival where you can try picking leaves yourself. Wear good shoes, because the paths go uphill.

Next, we'll go to Gwangju, a city with an important story about democracy, which we'll visit with a quiet heart. Annyeong!