Chinese Tea Culture: Tea Elegance in Guangzhou, China

Tea Culture and Tea Ceremonies in China are taken very seriously.  The Chinese have been sharing and drinking tea when welcoming visitors or holding important meetings for thousands of years (remember that documented Chinese history dates back at least 5,000 years!).  Tea Schools exist to teach students all about the different types of Chinese teas including choosing and understanding the various types, the proper brewing method and teapots to utilize, and the multiple steps involved in preparing and serving the tea to guests.  I was lucky enough to experience an actual Chinese Tea Ceremony recently at a Tea House in Guangzhou (very near the Sun Yat-sen University campus).  I am not sure of the name of the Tea House (I have the business card but it is written in Chinese!) but it was beautifully decorated and wonderfully peaceful additional Chinese music was played throughout the evening.  Here are some pictures from the room where the ceremony was held:

Here's the Tea Master, Ms. Zhou, who presided over the entire evening:

Ms. Zhou spoke no English yet the entire group (all Americans who spoke little to no Mandarin except for my wife Patti) all had little to no problem understanding all that she wanted to convey to us.  We did have a Chinese graduate student, Shu, who also studies Tea Culture and Ceremony under Ms. Zhou, who served as a translator but Ms. Zhou deftly used very fluid hand motions to clearly express all that we needed to know.  Her peaceful, positive, loving spirit emanated throughout the entire space.  She moved with the grace of a prima ballerina and with the exactness of Swiss watch.  She seemed to be one with the water, tea leaves, tea pots,, cups, and guests.  She made nearly no noise at all despite working with boiling hot water, a stainless steel water heater, and tea ware that was either completely ceramic or glass.  The only non-ceramic or glass items were the small bamboo slightly curved sleeve that held the tea prior to its brewing and the wooden spoon-like instrument that she used to move the tea off the bamboo holder and into the pot (always using EXACTLY three movements of the spoon to move the entire pile of tea into the pot).  Everything was done with flair and grace totally following the exact instructions as per Chinese traditions.  These include, but are not limited to, filling the stainless steel heater with fresh water in full view of her guests, using the initial batch of heated water to clean all of the tea ware (also in front of her guests), adding the tea into the pot with 3 (never 2, 4, or even 3.5) strokes, pouring the water into the pots from a good height (like a waterfall), allowing each guest to smell the tea leaves at several points during the process, allowing the heated water to cool to the proper temperature for the particular leaves, filling each cup only 70% of the way (the remaining 30% is to be filled by the friendship between her and her guests), and NEVER spilling even a single drop of the precious water or tea.  It is an indescribably challenging process yet she did it effortlessly as if it was the equivalent of tying her shoes or buttoning a blouse.  

We tasted a red tea first, followed by an special green tea that historically is only served on the most special occasions, and finally an amazing oolong tea.  She explained that each tea leaf variety creates a certain number of quality pots of tea.  As is customary, she brewed the correct number of pots for each tea (3 pots of red, 5 pots of green, 7 pots of oolong) and we happily sat for hours drinking tea and enjoying each others company until the last drop was consumed.  The evening was completed by the taking of photos to commemorate our amazing evening:

(My beautiful wife Patti is in the pink dress between Tea Master Zhou and our translator, Shu.  The other two women in the photo are professional colleagues of hers)

So when you get to China, be certain to visit an true Tea House and have a full Tea Ceremony experience.  You will love the tea, be amazed by the ceremony, and leave with a much better understanding of Chinese people and their culture.

Power to the Purple!