Green Tea Masters

I visited Korea late in October 2012 when I climbed Backyang Mountain. I was collecting maple seeds and on the way back to Busan, my colleague, Professor Kuil Kang, wanted to drop by to see the tea master, Mr. So-sil Hong. Professor Kuil Kang was a pharmacologist in college who did a lot of tea research for the three countries of China, Japan, and Korea.. I drove down to South Ocean Belt Highway to the east and drove up along the beautiful Sumjin River. I finally arrived right below Jiri Mountain skirts where green tea plants covered the fields between the River and the Mountain. Mr. Hong was a healthy looking tall gentleman who welcomed us with his wife who was also tall and healthy with very clean skin, who expressed to me that they were very healthy because they always drink tea.

We had lunch together and Mr. Hong showed us his tea processing facility at the production center. He explained to me everything except how to roast tea. He said while “showing me a large iron pot”
that he always roasts with an old lady, which was his business secret. Since then, I visited three more times to see him but unfortunately, he passed away three years ago. In his early age when Mr Hong came to find tea plants under Hwaum Temple, he cried at the sight of the wild green tea field partly covered with snow. He began to relocate them to the fields near the Hadong region. Now Hadong is one of the major tea fields in Korea with the Tea Research Center.

Mr. Hong introduced me to one of his students, Mr. Sungyul Yoo in 2017 when I had difficulty in my research for the USDA Specialty Crop Grant (2015-2017). The cold winter weather in Northern Virginia was presenting a problem. Mr. Yoo showed me how to protect tea plants in the cold weather and how we can roast tea for Balhyocha in the traditional Korean approach, etc. We visited his green tea farm in Kosung, Kangwon Province near Kumkang Mountain. Mr. Yoo is considered to be one of the green tea masters now.

— Young