Natalie always made an attempt to learn a few words in ever place we visited. To do so in China she took a short course at Omeida Language School. The Chinese didn't stick well but getting to know the language school gave us an opportunity to join them on a school field trip to Qixian Feng Organic Tea Garden.

At the garden we got to pick fresh tea leaves from the shrubs you see here. We learned how to dry and cook tea so it is ready for brewing. And at the end of our visit, they prepared a variety of white, green and black teas for us to taste.

Besides the group from Omeida there were families and employees of the garden picking tea at the same time we were. Our group and the families were easy to identify as we were walking around with brightly colored wicker baskets to collect our tea. We were told to pick the lighter colored, new growth leaves from the tops of the shrubs. After being there a while an employee passed by Natalie and looked down in her basket, laughed out loud and walked away.

A few minutes later, we saw one of the families basket and it was filled up to the top. I don't know exactly what they were doing differently, but it was resulting in a lot more leaves that what we were doing.

I'm going to attribute it to desire as we had no idea what we were going to do with the leaves we collected while I'm pretty certain they knew exactly.