Visit Fuding and
Chiang Mai

The family retreat stands in the tea itself: a white house in the rows, a tea room hung with calligraphy, the storehouse a few steps away. It is for guests who want to see where the tea begins: to walk the gardens, sit through the withering season, and drink the vintages where they rest. Days follow the tea. Mornings in the gardens or at the waterfall below the old temple mountain; unhurried meals; evenings of tea in the courtyard. In picking season, guests rise with the pickers. The family village is West Kun, where the carved gate gives the house its name. Fuding, the mountain has the photographs.

Since 2019 Ernan (二南), born Kong Nairong, has kept a white tea and Chan arts house in northern Thailand: a bamboo pavilion he designed himself, a pond for watching, a studio where the paintings are made, and a few rooms for guests. There are tea sessions morning and evening, meditation gatherings on the calendar, calligraphy and painting in the studio, and a long table under the pavilion where guests from every country end up sitting together. Many arrive for a single session and stay for days. Chiang Mai, the tea house shows the rooms.

Every stay is built around the tea: the vintages, the withering trays, the old storehouse in Fuding; the aged cakes and the long table in Chiang Mai. Parties are small, the rooms are few and kept simple, and there is no programme to keep up with. Guests sit, drink and talk; they walk; they watch the work if it is the season for it. For houses and trade partners, a visit is also the tasting before an allocation, with the storehouse opened and the maker at the table.

In Fuding, spring picking (late March into April) and the White Dew harvest in early autumn are the living seasons; winter is the quiet one, and some winters the gardens are under snow. For Chiang Mai, send the dates that suit you. If your dates are already fixed by other plans, send them anyway: the reply will say what that time of year holds in the gardens or at the tea house, and what can be seen of the work.

Fuding is a county on the coast of north-east Fujian, in China; Chiang Mai is the city of northern Thailand. The houses themselves are not listed on this site. Once your dates are agreed, the reply tells you how to reach the house you are coming to. Directions are shared personally, never published.

In Fuding the tea sets the hours. In spring the pickers are in the rows soon after first light and the trays go out into the sun; in the withering season there is always a tray to turn. In the evenings the storehouse is opened and the vintages are poured where they rest, often several years of one tea side by side. Walks go up through the terraces, down to the stream below the gardens, or to the waterfall below the old temple mountain.

In Chiang Mai the days are slower. There are tea sessions morning and evening at the low table in the pavilion, calligraphy and painting in the studio, meditation gatherings on the calendar, and breakfast on the long table. The aged cakes that travel south each year are opened here, one at a time.

Write in English or Chinese; the reply comes in the language you write in. At the table, tea needs very little translation.

Use the Enquire button on any page and choose a stay in Fuding or in Chiang Mai, or write to ernan@thesilknet.com. Say when you would like to come, how many you are, and anything we should know. The reply comes personally, in English or Chinese, with what the days would hold, and confirms the room.