Many of you have heard about Lu Yu, the man that wrote the Cha Jing, the first book about tea, written during the Tang Dynasty. Some of you may know that he wrote the book while managing the emperor’s tribute tea factory, which was located near the city of Changqing in China’s Zhejiang province. It took twenty years. The factory employed 20,000 workers.

What most of you may not know is that there is currently being built a massive reproduction of his factory on the site of the old factory, which will be a museum and monument to tea, tea culture, and Lu Yu. It is being built in the Tang Dynasty style, of wood and stone, the wood being imported from as for away as Canada and South America. The only way to get an idea of the scope is to fly over it. Here is an artists view.

So as you can see it is massive. Here is a shot of the temple area at the very top.

It’s about six stories high. So for Seven Cups, we have been paid the highest honor that I can think of, we have been invited to have a tea house in the museum complex. Phase one is to open in May 2008 and the project is to be completed in 2009. Please come have some tea with us in Changqing.

Austin