Terroir

"My pilgrimage was a trip to the south for ten thousand li to worship the King of Tea Trees"

– Zhao Pu Chu 赵朴初

Our garden located at latitude 27° North which is the same as Okinawa, Japan or Zhejiang, China. However, the garden is at an altitude of between 1650m and 2200m. Using the dry adiabatic lapse rate of 10°C per km of elevation, our latitude shifts roughly by an equivalent of 1000 km to 1600 km towards the pole or about 15° of latitude. That puts us at the latitude of Kyoto-Nara in Japan or Beijing in China. So our teas are grown in a much colder area than our geographical location suggests.

The tea garden is less than 25 km as the crow flies from the steamy and lush jungles of Terai lowlands (400 m above sea level) to the south. The hills and mountains start abruptly and in 25 km the elevation reaches 2100 metres. With standard lapse rate of 6.5°C to 10°C per 1000 meters, when it is 32°C in the Terai in South Nepal (400 metres), the temperature in Jun Chiyabari Tea Garden will be about 20°C only. To the north, the world's highest mountain rises to 8848 metres in just 115 km from our tea garden. In between the south and north multitudes of  of micro climate and terroir exist. The mixing of the warm air from the south and cold air from the north often shrouds the tea garden in cool mist enabling good tea growing conditions.

"Realising that the flavour of tea and the flavour of Zen are the same,
He scoops up the wind in the pines, his mind without defilement"

– Dairin Soto 大林宗套 (1480-1568), the 90th chief-priest of Daitokuji & the teacher of Takeno Jōō 武野 紹鴎

The effect of the altitude, bright and warm sunny days punctuated by cool mountain mists and chilly nights is that the tea is invariably light and aromatic; and depending on the variety or cultivar and processing, flowery, fruity, grassy or nutty.
All our tea comes from small plots between 1650 and 2200 metres above sea level which are within a 10 km radius of the factory . Within and between these small plots on the hilly slopes are forests, bamboo groves, rocky boulders, brooks and streams.

This is the terroir from which our tea is created.