Travel day and dinner with Joe - day nine

Today's blog was written by grower Dean Levitt from Walkaway.

The smog in Beijing is like a constant haze and I woke up this morning coughing like a smoker.

Travel day today, and after the recent Malaysian airlines incident I think the group will give our plane a thorough check over before boarding! 

On the way to the airport we discuss the local economy with Wallace, our host from CBH Hong Kong, but I think that just the sheer size of things here and the numbers feel out of proportion because we have nothing similar to compare to.

After surviving the trip to the airport in the bus we think our chances on the plane feel a lot better - except for the gaffer tape holding the aircraft door shut!!

After arriving in Guangzhou we have a whole new array of drivers to contend with who thing they must have a chance with the F1!

Our bags go straight to our rooms and off we go on the underground. Top quality transport. With only three ladies in the group, they still manage to get us all to go shopping with them - and they can shop!

We have dinner in Guangzhou's number one banquet restaurant with a friend of CBH, Joe, who is the now retired GM of a malting company called Supertime, which we will visit tomorrow. 

Joe is a wealth of knowledge - he talks to us throughout the dinner about China's farmers. It seems they have high inputs per hectare, around 2,000 RMB ($360 AUD), with large yields with very low quality. 

There is also no real breeding programs in place for Barley and wheat there is a guaranteed floor price. 

A lot of China's irrigated farm land is in the lower rainfall areas in the north of the country, which averages less than 15 inches. 

It was also interesting to hear that the country imports the equivalent amount of grain wasted on farm from poor storage or transportation issues. 

The Great Wall - day eight

Today's blog was written by Paul Cunningham from Tambellup.

Today we are heading to the Great Wall of China. A few of us are a little tired after a hard night of trade negotiations at the Yanjing Brewery.

On the bus, our guide Linda informed us that flats in Beijing are very expensive. On average a 60sqm flat costs about half a million USD.

Another interesting fact was that because of China's 'one child policy', if you had a second child you would be fined around two years salary!

In terms of industry, it was interesting to hear China is starting to outsource manufacturing as the average age of people working in factories was more than 50 years old.

On the way to the wall, some of us were able to inspect the welding seams of a semi trailer as it pulled out onto the highway at high speed and came very close to the bus!

When we arrived at the Badaling section of the wall we were given a brief history lesson. The wall was started around 700 years ago and is around 5,000km long - around the same as driving from Perth to Sydney!

Around one million people worked on building the wall, and unfortunately nearly half of those workers died during the construction.

We took a small gondola style cable car up the hill to the wall, where we got to know each other very well squished inside the car!

We spent around 45mins walking up and down on the wall, before it was time to head back to the bus.

We then headed back towards Beijing to visit the forbidden city. We found our driver was highly skilled in driving down back alleyways... In fact until now I didn't know you could get a car and a bus past each other in a three metre wide space!

They started building the forbidden city in the year 1406 and took around 40 years to build and tkes up around 72 hectares. The city has 9999.5 rooms because the Chinese believe heaven has 10,000 rooms and the emperor is the next closest to god. 

It was also forbidden for a common person to entertain he city as it house do he emperor. The main buildings of the forbidden city run along the meridian line and has housed 24 emperors since completion. 

We headed back to the hotel to freshen up before going to dinner at a traditional Chinese house. The food was exceptional and plentiful with many of us struggling to get through all the courses. 

We caught taxis home which was a new experience in its self - we couldn't get out fast enough!  

Beer tasting in Beijing - day seven

Today's blog is written by grower Andrew Chitty from Williams.

Another early start to the day as we say goodbye to Japan where we have been treated so well and look forward with excitement the prospect of visiting china and the culture that comes with it. I'm also a little apprehensive about leaving the high standard of living that we have been used to in japan!

It is at Tokyo airport that we say goodbye to our new found friend and travel companion Ted, from Zennoh, who has been with us for the whole tour. We look forward to seeing Ted back in Western Australia in the near future. Thank you very much again Ted.

We arrive at Beijing airport around lunchtime where we meet Wallace Chang, who heads up the CBH head office in Hong Kong. We are treated to lunch in a Chinese banquet resturaunt inside the terminal, and are left in awe at the size of the airport.

We then catch a bus and head towards Yanzing brewery and Wallace tells us some facts about Beijing and China during the 40 minute trip.

Yanjing was actually the original name for Beijing. The population of the city is estimated to be 25 million people - more than Australia's entire population. The major problem facing the Chinese government is the huge rate of urbanisation, as 50 years ago 90% of people lived in rural areas, which has since declined to 40%. China now has lots of vacant farming land as the price of wheat was $280 for a tonne (offered by the government) was not sustainable due to the high cost of production.

The scale of the brewery and it's entrance was very impressive. We were taken into a large hall to watch a promotional video about the history of the brewery.

Yanjing's major claim to fame was sponsoring the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and most recently, the Chinese moon exploration project. The brand value is now estimated to be 13 billion yuan - in excess of $230 million Aussie dollars. There is advertising for Yanjing all over the city - in fact it was one of the first ads we saw at the airport!

We discovered that in 2002 china surpassed the USA for beer consumption and the state owned Yanjing now has 40 breweries operating in 18 provinces across China. The beer has received lots of awards over the years, particularly after listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange in 2001.

Yanjing has very modern production facilities utilising a German built plant. Their annual production is 1.2 million tonnes. We are shown a model of the Yanjing site, which is massive and covers 100 ha.

The brewery site has 8,000 staff from the total of 40,000 across China. The site is totally self sufficient including coal power generation, production of 1.2 million tonnes of cans per year and offering accommodation and recreation facilities for on-site workers.

Mainly Australian barley is used in the operation along with local yeast and hops from the northwest.

Boudin is used for Yanjing's top end beer which is 50% of production, it's also used for the medium quality beer which takes up another 30%. Buloke is also used for the middle end brew and the rest of Yanjing's production.

Yanjing has just received its first load of bass, however is a little concerned of the outcome as the taste and colour is harder to match to the Boudin variety.

Yeast is added at approx eight degrees and fermented for around 20 days. There are 80 fermenters at the plant, with each tank holding 40 tonne (40,000 litres or 5,000 cartons!) and producing 400,000 cartons of beer every 20 days.

We view the bottling and packing warehouse where we see conveyor belts and automated packing and labeling systems in action. These machines bottle 36,000 bottles per hour.

We find out it takes a total of 40 days to bottle the beer, including seven days in the malting process, and 20 days fermenting.

The final stop on the tour is the Yanjing bar, where we tasted the top end draft first. It has a clean crisp and light malt taste and is 3.2 % alcohol. We then managed to do lots of tastings and the Chinese tradition of bottoms up which is skull your glass which suited us all quite well!

During the tasting we were told that last year, China's beer production was 50 million tonnes, using 4.5 million tonne of grain - Yanjing produced six million tonne.

We then headed to dinner across the road at the brewery's research and development centre at around 5pm. By this stage we were already very merry and was a little concerned when we sat down to bottles of whiskey, which had been made with the barley left over from the beer production process.

Needless to say we poured ourselves onto the bus after dinner!!

Snow day - day six

Today's blog was written by grower Natalie Browning from Kondinin.

After spending the night at the beautiful Niseko Northern Ski Resort we all awoke to steady snowfall this morning. 

We would be leaving the resort at lunchtime, so we were fortunate enough to participate in a snow activity during the morning.

It was decided that letting nine Australian farmers (many who had never seen snow before) loose on the slopes with ski's or snow boards, might not be the best idea, (I couldn't possibly imagine what could go wrong!!) And so we would go snowshoeing through the forest instead. 

What a fantastic experience. We trekked into the forest in two meter deep snow, with at least a foot of fresh soft undisturbed powder on top. We observed and listened to woodpeckers in the trees, and used our snowshoes to snow surf down small hills. 

Our guides then shovelled a large rectangular hole in the snow for us to make a bench for us to sit around. Out came the thermos and we all had a hot cupper together, before trekking back to the resort. 

After a quick hot shower and a buffet lunch we hopped on the bus and headed to Otaru. We spent a couple of hours sightseeing, walking the streets in steady snowfall, with temperatures reaching -4 degrees. We sampled the local delicacies including sushi, and chocolate.

Back on the bus for the next leg of the journey. We headed to Chitose to catch our 6:00pm flight back to Tokyo. 

We reached our final destination for the day, the airport hotel at 9:00pm. Tomorrow morning we begin the next leg of our trip, and will be flying to Beijing China. 

We have all had an amazing week in Japan, and we are extremely grateful for the generosity and kindness that has been displayed to us by our hosts from Zennoh.

Heading north and Hokuren feed mill - day five

Today's blog was written by grower John Northover of Dalwalinu.

Up early leaving the port city of Kobe.

After much travelling by bus and plane we arrived at Chitose airport in Hokkaido. What a surprise to see white frozen land covered in snow, and snow still falling.

This northern most island of Japan was absolute wilderness until 100 years ago at which time the government decided to open up the land using mainly retired soldiers or samurai. Clearing the land was hard work and a long time to settle down into production.

The local farmers story left an impression of the remoteness and harshness of the environment equal to  Australia's in a lot of aspects.

Lunch in Sapporo - famous for its ice festival, then on to a meeting with big boss Zennoh and the Hokuren Group who produce feed for livestock and are part of the Zennoh Co-operative. 

The co-operative does many things for the farmers from government representation to chemical supply to selling food. It has $100 billion turnover and is the world's largest co-operative, investing back into the industry. This structure of everything under one roof, so to speak, seems better.

In Hokkaido alone there is 1.5 million cattle on feed, consuming 9,200 tonne of pellets daily made up of 3% lupins and 30% feed barley. Zennoh, also known as JA, have been genuinely interested and very knowledgeable. 

Off to Niseko on the bus in the afternoon. It's snowing really heavily. But we can't ski due to insurance, which is all good.

At the Niseko Northern Resort, we had our last official dinner with our hosts from Zennoh, who thanked us for visiting them in Japan and presented us with bottles of sake to take home. Richard thanked Zennoh on our behalf for being such generous hosts and expressed his gratitude for the strong relationship CBH have had with Zennoh for the past 44 years.