Morning with the tea master

At half past five the Yulong River is visible only up to its knees. The karst towers people fly halfway round the world to see are hidden in mist, and they will stay hidden for about an hour. On the wooden deck below the house seven people stand in silence, copying the movements of an old man in a grey jacket. Tai chi happens here every morning, in rain and in winter, and nobody signs up. You simply come.

A man who does not hurry

Mr Huang Zeming has looked after the tea garden on the hillside behind Atlantis Haven since before there was a hotel here. He is seventy-two and speaks slowly, as if each word had to cool down first. When I asked him on my first morning how much time I should set aside for tea, he looked at me as if I had asked how much time to set aside for rain.

The spring picking begins at the end of March. Only two leaves and a bud are taken, by hand and only in the morning, while there is still dew on the bushes. A kilogram of fresh leaves becomes roughly two hundred grams of tea after withering, rolling and firing. On the wall of the tea house hangs a board recording what the garden gave each day. Nobody reads it, but Mr Huang writes it every day.

"Tea cannot hurry. Whoever hurries drinks only hot water."

What stillness does to a schedule

I arrived with a calendar full of remote meetings. On the second day I cancelled half of them – not out of heroism, but because holding on to them seemed pointless. A day at Atlantis Haven has a different rhythm: tai chi, then breakfast; a consultation with Dr. Lin Yuhan or a tuina massage in the morning; rest after lunch; tea in the afternoon. In the evening the fire burns in the Grandeur Grill, and at nine the meditation hall fills with people who a week earlier insisted they could not meditate.

What surprised me most was how quickly the body adjusts. On the third morning I woke at five without an alarm and went to look at the mist. Mr Huang was already on the deck. He nodded, as if we had known each other for years.

Honest notes on the journey

Atlantis Haven is not around the corner. From Europe you fly to Guilin with one connection – via Guangzhou, Shanghai or Hong Kong – and the drive from the airport takes an hour and twenty-five minutes. The high-speed train stops at Yangshuo station, where we collect you for a thirty-minute drive. You arrange your own visa; the concierge sends an invitation letter within 24 hours.

Is it worth it? I asked Mr Huang on my last morning. He poured my tea, waited for it to cool and said: "Ask me in a year." The year has not passed yet. But at home I make my tea more slowly.