Tongmu Pass is the most hard-core journey in our Tea Mountain series: four days and three nights in a village 800 metres up inside the pass, up at four every morning to look at the tea hills.
Jin Jun Mei was created here in 2005; half a kilo of finished tea takes seventy thousand buds. We sit with guests in the workshop through an entire night — withering from five in the afternoon, fermentation at one in the morning, first drying at four. The quietest stretch comes in the middle: everyone gathered round the drying basket, watching only the fire.
Little sleep, a good deal of walking and almost no phone signal are the norm on this route. And yet it fills up faster than any other.
Last year a 67-year-old guest emailed us: 'That night at Tongmu Pass was the best night I have had since retiring.' It is the best award we can receive.
If this is your first time, two things are worth preparing: a thick jacket, because the nights inside the pass are cold, and a capacity for staying up late. The itinerary includes no tea-buying stops — if you want to buy something, talk to the masters yourself. We do not take a margin on that.