Author: Mei Lan Hsiao Page 9 of 31

Even though her family has nothing to do with tea, but she learnt the importance of consuming tea correctly in daily healthy diet based on the Chinese traditional medicine principles in Yin-Yang and 5 elements from her family when she was very young.
She entered the tea learning in Taiwan since 1985, left her root because of marriage in 1991 helped her to expand her learning from original inward-out views to 360 degree. She started to promote the authentic knowledge about tea and wisdom in Chinese tea culture in Belgium since 1995.
Tea has always been and will continue be her best teacher. In front of Nature and Tea, she remains as an innocent child, a life-time learning student.

Time to Drink Tea

By Mei Lan Hsiao

On 24/10/2019

In About Us

Many years ago in a tea shop, a statement from a chic couple caught my attention: “Can’t live without tea”. Instantly, I said “Wah, how glad to meet a tea lover”. But when watched further, I was so disappointed. Because after smelling many different kind of tea from caddy made of tin, she chose the flavored aromatic blend that has very strong floral essential oil flavor. My husband whispered and I tried to covered his mouth promptly while he is right about his concern: “How long can she live healthily by drinking too much non-pure tea daily”.

Basically if drinking tea is not for health, then perhaps the best choice simply is water.

Q: Which tea is the best tea?

A: The one that suits to your conditions at that moment is the most suitable tea to you. The answer one to this question would be:

how much do you know your body and are you aware the change of health conditions and energy level in time?

Indeed many scientific researches have confirmed the health benefits that tea can bring to body, but it is about how it can facilitate the daily healthy lifestyles but not vitamin or medicine to solve any specific health problem.

The answer two to this question would be:

Do you know when to drink what and how much?

Some people say, it is necessary to boost up physical energy in the morning and refreshing head in the afternoon; some people say the other way around; but are you aware the change of your health conditions and energy level in a day? What and how do you need to sustain a balanced energy in your body and mind in the morning and afternoon? The need for each person might be different and even changes in different phases？

My mother has a lot of health problem since the day I have memory, when I was responsible to prepare tea for her and for my father everyday since I was kid, plus the learning of the change of Yin-Yang, here is my suggestion:

After breakfast : White tea because it is a nice way to wake up your body with soft and gentle manner while enjoying a cup of gentle clean and pure natural flavors and taste.
10:00 a.m. : It is time to refreshing your thought and relaxing your body by recharging the refreshing energy with Green Tea.
Noon time : I simply follow my mind and body to drink tea that go along with food that I am eating. Because the main focus is to have healthy and balance diet, so stomach comes first.
16:00 (4:00 p.m.) : It’s time to recharge the physical energy, so I will choose from Oolong or Black Tea. Again, I will pay attention not to upset or stimulate too much to my stomach, so I would choose either traditional fermented charcoal roasted Oolong or Solar-dry Gushu Black Tea.
19:00 or after dinner : based on my knowledge about Anhua Dark Tea, I would definitely choose the Fu Cha that cleans those greasy fatty feeling in my stomach with the refreshing after taste.
21:00 : It’s time to make a closure for the day, normally it is time for me to enjoy a moment of tea ceremony. I would definitely keep away from green, yellow or lightly fermented Oolong; instead I would make my choice among aged gongfu black tea, traditional oolong, aged white tea or aged dark tea. While visiting Hunan these few days, I would definitely go for aged Anhua dark tea, it is not just because I am currently visiting Anhua where I can easily access to very good quality of dark tea, but it is because it is the tea that I feel good in this humid and in between warm and cheer air region. Yet, it is very important that does not give me too much energy from tea tannin which might cause sleeping problem. With the right choice of tea and slowing down the tea moment, tea and the meditative tea ceremony moment actually serve me even much better than any sleeping pile that I do not need.

Of course this is the tea drinking time table for people who do not have problem with stomach or any specific health problem/s.

Tea provides many health benefits if you know what to choose and how to adapt the tea drink in your healthy diet everyday.

copyrighted of Mei Lan Hsiao, Belgium Chinese Tea Association

Yellow Tea

By Mei Lan Hsiao

On 19/10/2019

In Yellow Tea

I did not know how to answer this question when someone told me a British tea company published on their web site about yellow tea that the production know-how was lost for hundreds of year and only recovered in 1970.

I hope the follow information is able to establish some clarifications:

Yellow tea is a very unique tea from China, basically the production method is very similar as green tea, except there is an additional ‘staking fermentation’ process. Therefore, yellow tea is a mild oxidized tea.

In different historical period in China history, there are different kind of yellow tea:

The yellow tea that we know today has unique characters from specific tea tree cultivars that the fresh young bud and leaves appear in more yellowish color
Teas presented to the Emperor in Tang dynasty, i.e. yellow tea from Shoushan, Anhui and Mengding, Sichuan, were known as yellow tea because of the color from dried tea leaves appeared in yellowish color.
Basically there are three types of yellow tea based on the tenderness of fresh tea buds:
- Yellow Buds (or yellow tips) : such as Junshan Yinzhen (Hunan), Mengding Huangya (Sichuan) and Huoshan huangya (An Hui)
- Small-leafed yellow tea : such as Weishan Maojian,
- Large-leafed yellow tea can be found in Anhui, Hubei and Canton
The most easy visualized character from Yellow tea is the color of tea liquor is in more yellowish.
Yueyang in Hunan is known as capital of yellow tea
Even many Chinese can easily confused by yellow tea from green tea or vice versa, how can we expect foreign tea lovers have to go through language interpretation?

However, yellow tea can be an interesting choice for those who would like to drink green tea but have problem with stomach.

Purple Buds Sheng Pu’er

By Mei Lan Hsiao

On 19/10/2019

In Pu-Erh

As usual I always give myself and my husband a treat with a pot of fine tea we love before we go to bed.

The choice tonight is Purple Buds Sheng Pu’erh of 2005 from JingMai shan, in the Laku self governing region in Lincang, there are more than 28,000 Mou of ancient tea growing region near the border of Myanmar.

The flavours and tastes are smooth, gentle, sweet and fine. No trace of astringency and bitterness. The flavours and tastes are intensified in the 2nd brewing and the taste is getting finer. I am surprised by its astonishing strength in the after taste.

What a beautiful and pleasant night tonight with the #purpletippy #shengpuerh of 2005 from #jinmaishan.

Chinese Tea Ceremony

By Mei Lan Hsiao

On 18/10/2019

In ChaDao

Tea and tea culture began from China thousands year ago. When tea entered different countries via the first ancient Grand Silk Road in Han Dynasty to the West and another connection to the East, Korea and Japan, tea integrated in different cultures and influenced the change of lifestyle nicely without impulsing.

In the 12th century, Japanese Zen monk Eisai brought tea seeds and the whisking method Chinese tea ceremony that they learnt in the process of learning Buddhism in the Buddhist temple on Tian Tai Shan in Zhejiang Province back to Japan. The Cha Dao culture has further refined in Japan, the steamed green and whisking method tea ceremony are well preserved and refined further under the Japanese cultural discipline for being perfect.

Meantime in China migrations and expansions of tea plantation continued and more tea types gradually created. With the introduction of more fine quality teas, from steamed-green to wok-fired green and more varieties were born and more various tea types were introduced. Chinese tea ceremony methods gradually changed to loose leaves with gaiwan or small-teapot brewing. What remains same in Chinese culture from all those exciting changes are :

The “Dao” in Daoism is more than Daoist philosophy or limited to specific forms of exercise, it meant an on-going learning process and one has to his/her own responsibility to find his/her path to move forwards in life.
Chinese culture is closely linked with the teaching and wisdom from Confucianism, Daoism and Chinese Buddhism. Indeed there are plenty of temples in China, but what’s important in life is not about religion but is about
How to discipline and strength the inner-self
How to live by facing self
How to maintain a peaceful, respectful and harmony relationships in 360 degree, from family, working and society.

In tea, there is I, there is s/he, most importantly there are Us.
Tea reveals wisdom in life, the flavors and tastes in tea reflect the various unexpected things to happen in life. Tea is as life; life is as tea.

For thousands of year the meaning of Chinese tea ceremony maintains the same in Chinese culture that influence the Chinese lifestyle:

Fun and fine quality pleasure to enjoy in life
Tea is about taking time to enjoy a moment of peace and tranquility
Fine and warm friendship that interchange in silence by showing respect each others and self

So far, China is still the homeland for 6+1 tea types. Therefore there are different forms of process to present in the Chinese tea ceremony, despite differences, it again covers ONLY all aspects to enjoy:

Create a pleasant physical environmental ambiance
Prepare your mind
Evaluating the quality of tea
- The color from tea leaves (dried and wet) and tea liquor
- The natural and multiple layer of notes in flavors
- The charming multiple layers of transformation from the taste and after taste
- The number of brewing indicate the quality and strength
Respectful attitude and good manners in the serving, receiving and tasting tea

Making a cup of tea is easy, simply let’s have a cup of tea!

Zen is You, is How You Live

By Mei Lan Hsiao

On 15/10/2019

In ChaDao

People like to talk about Zen, often many people think Zen is an exclusive philosophy of Buddhism, or meditation means zen…… there are many different interpretations, but actually what is Zen?

I was first enlightened in the year of 1984 or early 1985 by the wisdom in Zen, two particular experiences helped me to open my mind and brought me, a Catholics to become a Chinese Buddhism Zen practitioner.

Instead of telling you what Zen is or isn’t, let me tell you my stories:

Tea, a cup of fine tea

By Mei Lan Hsiao

On 14/10/2019

In ChaDao

When talking about tea, often people like to compare which tea is better than the other tea by tea type, country by country, region by region, by altitude or even by the aging…… But actually which criteria define the basic quality differences in tea and what does a cup of tea do with your health?

In short, tea is more than a cup of delicious and healthy beverage; it reveals how do you care about your health and how well you know what and how to manage your energy in this fast changing and stressful reality today.

The answer to a cup of fine tea should be explored in the follow fundamental question areas:

How much do you really know about tea?
Are you really following tea or lead by preconceived decisions?
Which processes are important to you to think about how to sustain health through tea?
Do you know what and how to select tea before brewing tea in the cup?
How well can you manage the tea brewing?
Do you know what and how to consume tea per day?
Last but no least, is tea just limited to a cup of tea?

Of course, there are typical parameters to define a fine cup of tea, but through the tranquility, purity and clarity in tea, we can deepen the learning in life.

I will be more than happy to share my experience and learning with tea lovers in the Berlin Tea Festival ( http://berlin-tea-festival.de/ ) on 23/11/2019.

Looking forwards to having a cup of tea with you in Berlin.

Is Tea Good for Young Children?

By Mei Lan Hsiao

On 09/10/2019

In Others

Either in China or in the West, often I met parents who were proud that their child can either make tea or drink tea at the young age, sometime even at the age of 3. This reminds me the teaching from my mother when I was about 8 years old when I was responsible to prepare tea for my father and mother in the weekend, but at that time my Mom dis-allowed me to drink tea. I could only sometimes have a zip of it, but never drank strongly brewed tea.

So, one day I came out with the “Why” question to my Mom why I might not drink tea, because it’s so attempting by its fine flavors when I made tea for them.

Even though my Mom was not a tea master or doctor, but she has very good common sense about healthy diets based on her learnings on the fundamental principles for health based on the Chinese traditional medicine (CTM) from her mother and grand mother, so here is what she said to me:

During the growing period, children need to have a lot of calcium and nutrients, so it is better to keep your body sober and clean as possible. In tea there are Tea Tannin and others that might affect the conditions to the stomach and could influence to digestion, particular during the developmental phase.
So, I was only allowed to drink tea at the age of 12.
Now when it comes to the subject if tea is good for young children, here is the summary of suggestions based on several researche reports found in China:

Tea contains substances such as theophylline, which can easily cause excitement in the central nervous system, infant and young children are still in the developmental stage, and each nervous system has a weaker ability to inhibit substances with excitatory effects.
The tea contains tannic acid and theophylline. When these two ingredients enter the body, they will potentially inhibit the absorption of some nutrients such as calcium, zinc, iron and magnesium. Excessive drinking of tea or drinking tea may lead to a lack of nutrients in the body and even malnutrition.
In general, tea has diuretic function. After drinking tea, the process of diuresis, tannic acid and theophylline can also cause the loss of minerals such as calcium and phosphorus for young children (this is what my Mom was talking about), which is not conducive to the absorption of iron and can even easily cause iron deficiency anemia . That might affect the absorption of nutrients
Avoid giving tea to children younger than 6, give selected tea, either caffeine-free infusion, or aged tea or very lightly brewed tea, to children over 6 and younger than 12.

Either to children or for adult, there are my simple suggestions for daily tea:

Alter the selection of tea drink according to the change of season
Avoid drinking strong tea
Avoid drinking fresh tea
Keep the brewing as light as possible
Limit the drinking quantity per day
Have a glass of water in between tea drinks

Pregnant women certainly should avoid drinking strong tea, not only it’s susceptible to anemia, but also not conducive to the absorption of other nutrients. The stimulation of having too much Tea Tannin (Caffeine) can accelerate heart rate, increase urination and burden on heart and kidney. Tea does stimulates many health benefits, but drinking too much non-sense blending, or contains aromatic or coloring addictive substance might hidden the health. But the fault is not from the tea itself, but it is because people do not know what to select and how to drink tea.

We do, however, can train young children the techniques of brewing and serving tea, because it helps to start the respectful and disciplined behaviors training at the younger age.

AnHua Dark Tea

By Mei Lan Hsiao

On 09/10/2019

In Hei (Dark）Tea

Being a half Hunanist by birth, I felt so guilty of not knowing enough about Hunan and the black gold, Anhua Dark Tea. Autumn last year, finally I got my chance. In a very intensive root searching visit to ChangSha, Ivo and I managed to have a very short visit to Anhua for three days.

Due to the limit of time so we could only visited Liu Bu Xi village and observed the production of mysterious dark tea production, and of course we have opportunities to taste plenty authentic fine tastes of Anhua Dark Tea during our visit. Unfortunately the visit was too short, but plenty fine memories still in my heart every time I make myself a cup of Anhua dark tea.

What attracted us the most are not how fine in flavors and tastes from Anhua Dark Tea in that short visit, but more over on how the local people coherently forge a harmony bonding relationships through mutual respect with the Nature, and how the local people persistently preserve the old traditions in tea production know-how.

Anhua Dark Tea actually has over 2000 years stories in China history and was a well known border trading tea with Tibet since Ming Dynasty. There is a widely spread and well known legend about Anhua Dark Tea:

On the ancient Silk Road, one day a caravans that transported tea encountered rain and tea got drenched and moist. The tea merchants, of course, were very upset, but it was pity to throw it away so they went to a village, hopefully to rest and to dry the drenched tea. But at that time, many villagers died from dysentery and they have nothing to eat or drink. The tea merchants gave the tea to sicked and poor villagers. The result was splendid, villagers were all healed by drinking tea. Since then Anhua Dark Tea is known for its medicinal effects.

Today there are many international scientist research institutes are conducting research on dark tea to health. There are few unique characters we do can mention here:

Even though it does not have very sexy and delightful flavors but it tastes sweet and smooth
It comforts the stomach with its gentle sweetness and smoothness tastes
It keeps the stomach and body warm
Those who love black tea would easily fall in love with Anhua dark tea
It tastes good with or without milk. To those who concern the cholesterol, of course, should consider to drink it straight and pure without milk.
The flavors and tastes get better with the post-fermentation storaging, under appropriate conditions. Holds a great potential for value appreciation.

The production process of Anhua Dark Tea can be grouped in four major steps: Tossing, Rolling, Staking and heaping for microbial fermentation through moist heat. In the microbial fermentation process, secret of golden flowers are developed.

Dark tea is not only not yet very known in Europe or North America, even in China there are lots of misunderstanding. Honestly speaking, Dark tea has always been, which is still today, remains as an uncovered black gold that you should give yourself a chance to experience its tastes.

Each tea has it unique territorial characters that we need to learn to respect and appreciate. A physical tasting experience is extremely important to promote Dark Tea. There are plenty stories to discover behind the tea leaf, starting from the Nature, tea trees, hard working people, wisdom in tea production and urban culture and living rituals that people in Anhua are still holding on today.

Join me to discover the secret of golden flowers from Anhua dark tea. I can’t help to expect my next exploration to AnHua soon again.

GONGFU CHA

By Mei Lan Hsiao

On 07/10/2019

In Others

Using #gaiwan or #purpleclay #tixingteapot does not mean it is gongfu cha technique already, and it does not necessarily mean you are making the #gongfucha.

I started to practice gongfucha technique without knowing its true meaning. It took me years to realize the time I have wasted when realized those mistakes I made based on assumption, and corrections took me triple efforts and devotion.

I am glad with the early wake up call that I was able to restart my journey on the right path.

Before learning Gongfu Cha techniques, one must first learn what is tea. Knowledge about tea is must before learning Gongfu cha. Before practicing Gongfu Cha techniques one must first learn what does gongfu means, then what does gongfu means in tea????

Simple process requires serious and submissive learning.

Tea Enlightenmemt

By Mei Lan Hsiao

On 06/10/2019

In ChaDao

I am an innocent tea learner, more than 5 decades I learned tea based on the actural tasting experience from each brewing and tastes from authentic flavors and tastes, but not relying on reading or pre-conceived knowledge or preassumed creative ideas.

My learning is still on going today with innocent attitude and a opened mind.

oznorMB

How many visual attractions from tea ceremony performance are really about tea and for tea?

Many tea competitions actually have nothing to do with tea but are more like competitions of personal egoism.

Tea judging is an indepth and yet pragmatic learning process of being able to identify the balance in flavors and tastes, that requires genuine objective attitude, know-how and experience from listening to tea, meeting tea, tasting tea and knowing tea. When we judge tea, we will be, too, judged by tea.

#egoism #learningfromtea #wisdomintea #lifetimelearning #listeningtotea #meetingtea #tastingtea #knowingtea #teacompetition #teajudging