All tea in the world originated in the ancient forests of Yunnan province in the southwestern frontier of China. High in the Hengduan Mountains of Northern Yunnan, a patchwork of melting snow blankets a high-alpine meadow. Though rare at such high altitude, a single brilliant white flower of the Magnolia Wilsonii tree is first to unfurl, revealing a crimson inner whorl. The drooping flowers will not live long in the lingering winter chill, yet they whisper of the tremendous force that will soon transform the world around them. Plum and cherry blossoms, rhododendron, camellias, peonies, Himalayan blue poppies and high-alpine orchids flourish and bloom with the arrival of spring. The time of dormancy is over. As snow melts with the increased temperatures, longer days, and fervent sunlight, the mighty Yangtze, Salween and other rivers of Yunnan will overflow with rushing waters. These waters, teeming with life, nourish the 15,000 species of plants including over 60% of the plants used in traditional Chinese medicine. The ancient tea forests of Yunnan will thrive with the influx of fresh water, humidity, plant and animal life. 114 million years ago the first flower ever to appear would open to receive the rays of sun, marking an evolutionary transformation in the life of plants, an eruption of color and scent. So too with the arrival of each spring, all life explodes with growth, vitality, warmth, movement, awakening, light, expression and convergence. The energies of conservation and storage during the cold months of winter reach fullness and life returns.
For a tea person, this time of the year marks a shift in lifestyle, activity, and orientation. We transition from dark, earthy, grounding brews into lighter, floral, uplifting teas. Green and white teas, aged red teas, and young to mid sheng Puerhs are ideal for early Spring, while Qimen red teas, high-mountain, Baozhong and Dan Cong oolongs come out later in Spring. We generally explore more gongfu cha, brewing these delicate teas in small zisha pots with small porcelain cups, honing the craft of the perfect brew. We also enjoy early morning bowl tea sessions with large-leaf loose sheng puerh. This important time of the year is about growth, expansion, and creativity. Having conserved and cultivated our inner reserves during the winter, we welcome the lush growth of spring through sweet, opening, ethereal teas. We offer suggestions for how to embrace the changes that come with Spring, but first, the Spring collection.
THE COLLECTION
Living Teaseeks out farms or wild tea gardens that have a healthy, reverent relationship to all aspects of tea production. The following are qualities of a Living Tea: seed propagation instead of trees from grafted clippings with shallow roots, plenty of room for the trees to grow instead of tight rows like you see on tea plantations, biodiverse growing regions instead of clear-cut mountainsides or valleys, growing practices that avoid all chemicals including pesticides, chemical weed-killers and fertilizers, no irrigation, and living wages for all employees.
BREWING SPRING TEAS:
We recommend using 3-4 g. of tea per session, or simply, use enough leaves to lightly cover the bottom of the pot. This is true as a general rule of thumb for all teas included in this collection. For all of these teas, we generally recommend brewing with water between 190 and 200 D Fahrenheit (88 – 93 D Celsius), pouring off the first flash steeping to “awaken the leaves.” Brew the first five to six steepings for very short amounts of time (2-4 seconds). The practice of short steepings is different than European tea whereby you steep the tea for a long time. We enjoy the balled leaves of Bellwether and delicate leaves of Illumination directly in a bowl, which means adding a small amount of leaves to a tea bowl and simply adding water by pouring into the side of the bowl, not directly onto the leaves, which can burn them. You won’t get as many steepings, but the simplicity of the practice is a wonderful way to develop an accessible morning tea practice.
Return of Spring - Pre Qing Ming Green Tea
Harvested once per year at 1200 meters and certified organic from Northern Fujian near the Zhejiang province border. The chemical companies in china keep producing pesticides and herbicides that don’t come up on the radar, so true organic certification is important. We suggest brewing with cooler water temperature around 175 to 180 degrees to allow the delicate, fresh leaves to open evenly. Unlike many green teas, Return of Spring offers extraordinary patience, allowing for many infusions. You may consider brewing in a light colored or white bowl, as part of the joy is the exceptional spring color, a brighter green than any other green teas we’ve found outside of Japan where they steam the leaf to preserve the color.
Illumination - Aged Bai Mudan White Peony Tea
This stunning, floral tea comes from Northern Fujian, China from a small organic farm. The varietal is a late spring harvest Cheng He varietal, which comes from the name of the tea town in the north. The leaves are roughly 15 years old, with a blend from different years. The brew is forgiving and easy to prepare, ideal at 200 degrees, though you may enjoy experimenting with water temperature to learn the effects. The age has yielded a mature leaf, so a higher temperature is necessary to break down the cell wall. We were overjoyed to find a truly organic white tea, which is a rarity from this region.
Bellwether- Yunnan Golden Bud Red Tea
This organic black comes from the area of Simao, harvest during the Spring flush 2018 at an altitude of 1300 meters. Bellwether is grown on the southern slope of Ma Wei Mountain west of Pu’er City. The processing is typical of black tea with sun withering, rolling, oxidation (three hours) and drying. This robust Yunnan red tea consists of one leaf and one bud plucking. The taste is strong with chocolaty fruit and vegetal notes. The leaf and bud sets give a complex, full-bodied strong taste and mouth feel. We recommend brewed it many times Gong Fu or bowl tea style. In the words of one tea lover, Bellwether engages the entire sensorium- deep, rich, dark, mesmerizing, transporting. It is best in the morning as red teas tend to be the most enlivening.
Bloom - Aged Tie Guan Yin- 1970’s
This well-aged and expertly roasted Oolong burgeons with flavor and sensation, and thus the name Bloom. Dynamic flavors of coconut, vanilla and white flowers transform considerably as the leaves open. Bloom is a "cozy" tea, at once creamy and thick, with the slight bitterness of espresso beans from the roast and age. Bloom is an opening happiness tea for Oolong lovers who enjoy a balanced roasty depth and floral bloom. We were only able to provide enough tea for two to three sessions as an Oolong of this age is quite expensive.
The Art of Life in Spring
“The element of Wood includes the twigs and branches that quiver in the wind and the leaves that taste of the color green. It is the energy of spring, of new beginnings, progressive movement and reaching towards the future as well as the qualities of fiber and suppleness that give an organism the ability to maintain integrity through the storm winds of growth and transformation.” – Five Spirits, Lorie Eve Dechar
As we move through our second year of the Seasonal Tea Club, we are offering deeper material on what it means to live in alignment with the harmonious and inexorable cycle of the seasons. We encourage you to consult the Living Tea blog to explore the topics presented in the first year, including our relationship to changing seasonal climates and their impact on our health, foods and herbs to support seasonal transitions and the influence of flavor in teas. With our second year, we are focusing more on the psychosomatic aspects of the seasons and ways to utilize the energies of each season in one’s personal growth, as well as the teas that support these intentions and efforts. As we transition out of winter dormancy, during which we encouraged exploration of conservation, storage, fear and willpower, we move now into the propulsive movement, growth, and transformation associated with spring. The philosophy of the spring season, according to Classical Chinese Medicine, is one of rebirth, revitalization, renewal, upward movement, and yang expansion. We are encouraged to retire and rise early, going outside to move and absorb the fresh, invigorating morning energy, shaking out the stagnation that comes with winter dormancy. We benefit by open and unsuppressed movement, both physically and emotionally. Stretching the tendons and muscles, associated with the wood element and liver organ, helps us to align with the strong invigorating movements of spring.
The Wood Element
“During spring the subtlety and vastness of the universe, the intelligence and intuition of the human being, the ability of the earth to produce the ten thousand things, the natural movement of the wind, and the upward motion of all plants, collectively produce the movement of the tendons, the color green (growing sprouts)… the eyes (related to the liver), the sour taste (immature fruit), and the angry emotions (rising yang energy). These are all associated with the liver, since the liver is responsible for maintaining the patency of the flow of energy, and its nature is movement and expansion.” -Neijing 20
In Classical Chinese Medicine and Taoist philosophy, the spring is associated with the wood element, clear vision, planning, organizing, creating and execution. As Eliot Cowan points out in Plant Spirit Medicine, traditional cultures carried out initiatory rituals or “vision-quests” around the time of puberty to mark the transition from one’s physical growth to their psycho-spiritual development. This difficult experience of isolation symbolically represents the death of winter during which we face our deepest fears and come into contact with rebirth (spring) as an adult who now maintains clear vision of life purpose. These initiations are guided by elders and represent the maturation of an individual, now able to return to society with clear contributions, responsibility, accountability and trustworthiness. For the most part, such personal and social initiatory opportunities no longer exist in Western culture, and many people reach their middle years without a clear sense of purpose. In our youth obsessed culture, elders are often not held with high esteem because they do not contribute to our consumptive culture in the same way as the youth. Further, modern culture fails to support elders in their role as keepers of wisdom and guides through initiatory processes. Without a deep understanding of oneself and one’s life purpose, guided by the experience of elders, we struggle to clearly express our creative power. This stunted growth leads to stagnation and frustration, which over time often becomes anger and resentment. The liver, gallbladder and wood energies associated with spring are the source of vision, growth and creativity. Without the vehicle of purpose, humans can smolder in frustration, attempting to mask their emotions through alcohol, addiction and shopping. “Economic growth” depends upon our searching for identity and purpose through material consumption, yet this outward growth undermines our ability to find deeper inner growth. Excessive alcohol consumption leads to damage of the liver, and in the words of Eliot Cohen, “years before cirrhosis sets in, the vision of the soul is lost” (Plant Spirit Medicine 89). While this assessment of modern society may sound critical and old-fashioned, we find that a tea practice helps us address these issues in a meaningful, personal way. We offer this invitation as an experiment. Take what resonates for you, and leave the rest.
Humans grow like trees with deep roots, sprawling branches and fluttering leaves, which represent our dreams and wishes. We must have deep, organized roots to realize our visions. Where might you better orient your root system? Roots also refer to our relationship to our families and the place where we predominantly grew up. Is there anger (stagnant liver energy) that you carry with any family members or friends that might be addressed over a cup of tea, with the intention of cultivating compassion and benevolence? When was the last time you walked barefoot mindfully, got your hands dirty in the soil or watched the clouds pass overhead? These simple exercises help us connect to our roots, which allows for greater vision. The canopy of tea trees grows proportionate to the health and depth of the root system. Similarly, with a clear, strong material foundation, which requires purpose, vision, and planning, we create fertile conditions for our inner work. In Lorie Dechar’s book, Five Spirits, she states “In humans, the hun (liver energy) inhabits the vaporous, every-changing region of our visions, dreams and imagination and is the animating agent of all mental processes” (194). Do you have a plan for the spring and summer that is informed by vision? The clarity of our thought depends on a healthy liver and liver blood. Perhaps consider a liver spring cleanse by juicing oranges, beets, cranberries, cruciferous vegetables, dandelion greens and milk thistle, which provide vitamin C to protect the liver, proanthocyanidins- powerful antioxidants that protect liver cells and reduce inflammation, and potassium to reduce blood pressure. Consider reading Anthony Williams recent book, Liver Rescue, which sheds significant light on the role of the liver in many autoimmune conditions, weight loss, fatigue, SIBO and skin issues. Consider visiting the clinical protocols section of Chinese physican Joshua Geeter’s website, medranch.com, for a simple and effective liver cleanse, as well as a wonderful list of foods to eat during the spring. The basic premise is to combine sour flavors which course and cleanse the liver and gallbladder with oil which promotes expulsion of bile.
While enjoying the beautiful, delicate teas of the spring collection, perhaps reflect on your vision and plans to carry it out, get organized, envision your life in five years and set a path to get there. As the vital energies of nature come to life, you can explore creativity through whatever medium you feel drawn to. One possible exploration of creativity is through your daily cha xi, or tea stage, upon which you perform a tea ceremony. You might incorporate seasonal elements such as spring flowers and colored fabrics, sour fruits, and green elements. Consider writing every morning during or after your tea session, which allows you to connect with your interior life and see more clearly the winter wisdom burgeoning into spring planning. Finally, as part of your spring cleanse, consider reading the book The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. This extraordinary little book teaches the Japanese KonMari Method, with detailed guidance for determining which items in your house "spark joy" (and which don't), and the practice of mindfulness that changes one’s mindset in relation to their space and possessions. It’s a gamechanger for feeling organized and connected to your “stuff,” amidst a very cluttered world.
The spring collection of tea supports all of these endeavors in offering a healthy, cleansing opportunity for reflection, creativity, connection and enlivened activity. The delicate white and green tea foster “floral creativity,” and freshness while evincing the fragile nascence of the first spring buds. The red tea supports increased activity with the warmer weather and longer days, with a pleasant bitterness to clear heat amidst the increased temperatures. The aged oolong reflects the eruption of color, aroma and beauty that accompany the arrival of spring. We hope you deeply enjoy these special teas, as much as we savored the experience of discovering them and sharing them with you.
If you wish to understand more about simple ways to live in alignment with the season, subscribe to our newsletter or follow our Instagram @livingtea, as we will be offering practical daily and weekly examples of the teas we are drinking, seasonal foods, tea sessions and ceremonies, as well as upcoming events. We share what it means to live a life of tea and to sip seasonally. We wish you many moments of connection, joy and insight over a steaming cup. May we share one together soon in this life of tea.