The city of Boseong looks just like any other medium sized city in rural Cheollanam-do South Korea, however this unassuming city is actually one of the leading tourism draws in the entire country due to its beautiful tea growing plantations just south of the city.

The tea growing area to the south of the city consists of a multitude of different tea growing plantations to explore. Exploring the Boseong tea growing area is much like exploring an area awash in fine wineries. With so many different plantations it is hard to determine which one to check out. My wife and I decided to just randomly pick one of the plantations to visit. The plantation we decided to visit was the Boseong Mongchungsan Tea Plantation. The walk to the green tea fields from the parking lot was a short walk up a hillside through a nice wooded forest:

Once we had passed through the forest the rows of beautifully manicured tea fields began to come into view:

It is believed that green tea was introduced to Korea around 1000AD probably from China. The Boseong area was found to be perfect for green tea cultivation due to its mild climate and fertile soil. However, Boseong didn’t become a major source of green tea until the Japanese occupation of Korea in the early 20th century. These plantations from the Japanese occupation and others that have been created since then are currently responsible for approximately 40% of the nation’s green tea output.

I was just at one of the smaller plantations and by walking up the hillside I was quite impressed with how big a “small” green tea plantation can be:

When visiting the plantation I had total freedom to walk anywhere I wanted with nobody bothering me which was nice:

That was until I almost stepped on this snake pictured below and leaped back and fell over over an adjacent green tea bush:

I got back up looked around and fortunately no one saw me fall over the bush but I had end up taking another path around the snake because he was not about to move out of the way. I would later find out that the tea plantations are full of these snakes and that they are poisonous.

I eventually made my way further around the valley and took some more photos of the green tea fields:

Something that impressed me as walked through the fields was how the Korean women that worked in the fields here were going through and picking tea leaves by hand:

With the amount of bushes of tea here that has got to be quite a bit of work to do during the main harvest season. The tea leaves are actually harvested in the spring time because that is when new small leaves grow on the bushes and they plucked to be dried to make green tea.

As I walked around the ridgeline on top of the valley I noticed something the next valley over that looked like a spaceship had landed:

I started walking towards the spaceship and it quickly became evident that another tea plantation was being built in the adjacent valley with a massive viewing tower in the center of the valley. As walked over to the plantation they actually had a security guard posted to keep people from wandering over to the plantation and he chased me off.

Since I could not check out the plantation I decided to walk back down the ridgeline and meet up with my wife who was busy tasting tea back in one of the tea rooms. Before heading back I took one last photo of the tea fields that are overlooked by Mongchungsan mountain that made a brief appearance for camera out of the clouds that shrouded the mountain that day:

I walked back down the valley and headed over to the main tea room. My wife was of course trying out tea and the ladies that operated the tea room were quite happy to see an American visit the plantation. They told me I was the first non-gyopo American that they had seen visit the plantation. I was a little surprised because I figured Boseong would be a popular place to visit by at least long time expats to Korea.

I was also the first American soldier they had every met. The vast majority of American soldiers are stationed in the Seoul area or in the 2nd Infantry Division sector north of Seoul which means much of the rest of the country like Boseong never even see much less meet American soldiers. Naturally the ladies running the tea rooms were quite talkative to meet an American soldier and gave me all the green tea I could drink for free.

Really nice folks my wife and I met at the plantation and we left with plenty of green tea and bags of the best green tea candy I have ever tasted:

The tea plantation store and tea tasting rooms you see pictured above are located right along the side of the road and impossible to miss if driving by car. You could literally spend an entire day and even longer if you are really into green tea visiting the different plantations around Boseong. Even if you don’t like green tea Boseong is still a great place to visit due to the beautifully terraced and green hillsides full of tea which is quite photogenic. I highly recommend the place to anyone who happens to be visiting the area.

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