Ascertaining Serenity
This article was originally published in the September 2020 print edition of the Global Tea Hut magazine.
品茶 Pǐn chá
Verb: To sip, to taste with one’s three mouths (senses)
A tea shop roosted regally within the third floor of a tea mall in Xi’an, China. Its delicate, crisp interior resided in stark contrast to the majority of other shops in the vicinity. Instead of large freezers and open cardboard boxes stacked with the precarious surplus of tea samples, this shop embodied a traditional Ming Dynasty room. Robust, squared chairs built without the use of nails stood in proud company around an unadorned desk with a rolling silk cloth. A statue of the Goddess of Mercy minareted with elegant reservation in the centerpiece of the center chiffonier, a coil of thick incense smoke rolled upwards to the heavens. The tea itself was not loudly proclaimed as in other areas; instead, it accrued within precious time capsules of purple clay, tucked among the unshielded drawers of a mahogany cabinet: in the first year, it is tea; in the third year, it is medicine; in the seventh year, it is a treasure. Among the otherwise unadorned furniture gathered hand-crafted tea kettles, tea cups inscribed with calligraphy, and books collecting titles with words such as: Way of Tea, Path, Pu’er, Song brewing culture, incense, adopting an yixing.
This is where I settled to accompany my friend, Yibo, for hours to pǐn chá. We had originally met by serendipity when another tea shop I intended to visit within the mall was closed and I stumbled upon his door and was welcomed with a serene smile; I had returned every night since. Tonight was the last night before my dreadful departure from the City of Eternal Peace, and in celebration Yibo had invited his father, best friend, and a respected tea master to indulge in the pleasures of shared tea and conversation. We gathered around the calmly carved table. Conversation collected in Chinese, my second language; my contributions were reserved, my spirit pining to observe every detail of sound and aesthetic alike.
The tea master revealed a cloth bag stored with a collection of very long, very thick leaves: a pu’er from a tea tree 700 years old. Camellia sinensis is not a bush but a tree that is often clipped at waist-height in order to provide ease for tea pluckers to pick the leaves. Old growth trees or wild tea trees, while uncommon, are not entirely rare. The oldest living tea tree is reportedly (controversially) two thousand years old. Upon knowing the age of the trees from which this tea was crafted, I understood at once what a sacred gift this was as well as how expensive it must be. I thanked her for the generosity of the offer but stated, “I cannot accept such a gift. I am only a student.”
To which, the grand tea master replied with a smile, “We are all students of life.”
I inclined my head, humbled to have been invited to sample such an honorable tea. Still, merely a first-generation, scholarship-dependent junior in college, I felt unworthy. Without a pause, the tea master unsheathed a simple yixing pot.
I watched, eyes wide, hands folded timidly in my lap, as water descended in a graceful waterfall to first fill the vacant yixing pot. Silent, with steady command over her body, she emptied the yixing water into a pitcher and dispensed it among the assorted tea cups amassed along the table.
Among these tea lovers, one carried their personal hand-made tea cup when united in ceremony. These cups nestle into one’s palm with ease and virtue; the varieties contrasted based on personal taste and style. One cup, thin enough to allow soft light to shine through its translucent porcelain shell, revealed a single sliver, an outline of a lotus among calm water. A Heaven’s Eye (天目) cup: droplets in random bursts of muddied rainbow determined by the uncontrolled reaction to a high-degree kiln burning. And a squat, thick cup that depicted a fat, laughing Buddha carved in glorious, sunset marmalade.
These companions were just small enough that by the time one finished a cup, the next would be poured immediately (albeit not rushed) by the attentive tea master — one would never have to suffer a cold cup of tea. The continuous movement of water from the kettle to the yixing pot, shared with the pitcher, then dispersed among those individual cups was an embodiment of the Way of Tea: a steady act of service from the tea master to her attendees.
The cups and instruments of tea were first rinsed with hot water. This step warmed the cups so that the tea would rest comfortably when the first steeping was prepared; furthermore, it was a gesture of respect to us, the guests, to demonstrate that the cups were clean. This cleansing was repeated again once the leaves had entered the frame of the yixing pot: water dipped in for a moment — the blink of an eye, merely a few seconds — which was adequate time to move the gourd strainer from its stand to atop the pitcher. Then, the water flushed out, a pale river of the ultimate commanding hue of this tea’s first brew. The liquor was again extended to each cup, offered clockwise.
“Don’t drink this one,” Yibo’s friend, the man to my right, cautioned. “This is the washing of the leaves.”
I nodded, peered down, my desire to smell the liquor intense, but paused until my elders would move. Then, cup by cup, our tea master took these fragile companions and dumped their contents atop the tea pet figurines lined atop the tea tray. They too, would join us in pǐn chá (品茶).
品茶。Chinese characters are composed of radicals which connote pictorial symbols or suggestions for pronunciation. Pǐn 品, a single word, is composed of three box radicals 口 which represent three mouths. Pǐn chá has been haphazardly translated into “sipping tea;” however, to understand pǐn chá as an experience, one must engage in a tea ceremony by experiencing tea with one’s three mouths.
First, we appreciated the aesthetic of the tea leaves with our eyes: the first mouth. We savored the appearance of the leaves, dry and wet alike, and the liquor that emerged after water joined nimble leaves. As the tea rested, we could appreciate the hue in contrast to the tea cup. Once my fingers had tapped their gratitude (a nonverbal tradition purportedly passed down from the time of Emperor Qianlong, who would don peasant clothing and venture incognito into the Middle Kingdom to drink tea and learn about his country’s culture), I paused, admiring the rich amber collected within my cup. When two others lifted their cups, I then followed; I brought mine closer to my eyes and realized a small halo encircled the rim.
Collectively, we transitioned to our second ‘mouth:’ the nose. We inhaled the quiet hum of an acapella chorus to appreciate the humble aroma of this ancient growth tea. Our tea master then extended her arms and beneath the nose of each guest paused to permit the steam from the yixing teapot to rise. We rested within the dense fragrance of this tea. It consisted of the low notes of a serendipitous story in a compelling command; the kind where you aspire to have a conversation with each and every leaf. The savory words — the resounding notes — that accompanied me were that of hearty oakwood and the robust resilience of red clay during a thunderstorm.
My eyes darted to those around me, as one adjusted their weight by shifting hips. Some inhaled deeply — a powerful revelation of possessing lungs an opera singer would envy, while another inhaled sharply (the staccato of Breath of Fire), then turned his head to exhale before positioning his nostrils over the cup again to breathe in sharply.
When we were invited to utilize our third mouth, the actual mouth, I paused. I was the youngest there as well as the only international guest; I did not want to embody the stereotypical American greediness by rushing. Only after the others touched their mouth to the individually crafted cups did I bring my scarred lips to the thin rim of my chá bēi (茶杯).
And then I pǐn chá.
To say that this tea was delicious would undermine its innate qualities and patience. It touched me intimately and produced a quiver from my shoulders. The air was above eighty degrees Fahrenheit and the air conditioner had long since been inoperational; I could not assign the responsibility to any other factor. This tea had accurately seized the deepest vulnerability within my core. In that moment, I realized to pǐn chá is not to distinguish the three mouths as separate. Instead, the senses culminated in an overwhelming compilation of subtle intensity: as the heavy liquor rested along my tongue, singing the note of a sustained cello’s solo, the blurred cup beneath my nose emitted the brazen aroma of the tea merging with pristine porcelain, as the tea shop conversely focused through my glasses. To pǐn chá, I mused, was to embody the idiom 禅茶一味 (chán chá yīwèi): tea and Chan (Zen, Dhyana) are of the same flavor. I had not realized I was searching for enlightenment until I unexpectedly attained the utopia of serenity within the tea ceremony.
“Tea possesses history, experience, stories; in a likewise manner, so do people,” the tea master spoke. “Those brimming with youth are like green tea plucked in the prime of spring. They are soft, susceptible to the influence of the elements, and have a fainter flavor. Whereas those of our parents’ generation are more like pu’er tea, many leaves compacted into a disk or a brick — experiences cultivated into a strong unit.” The tea master spoke calmly as she graciously, eloquently, poured additional water into the yixing pot before refilling the kettle atop an automatic refill, pressing one last button to bring the water to a boil. Her actions ensured that by the time the next steeping had been poured into our cups, the water would be ready to begin the third steeping. Her actions were seamless, uncalculated, smooth: the carefully crafted culmination of decades of serving.
“As pu’er tea is best aged, so too does time enrichen the flavor of our experiences. Yet, these experiences come twig by twig into the fire of our life — if we try to add too much at once, we will be scorched. In this way, we slowly add twigs to our fire, words to our vocabulary, memories to our life. It is a slow process indeed.”
She poured the thick, ruby molasses of the second brew into the transparent, glass gōngdào bēi (公道杯): the pitcher to serve the people surrounding. All except for I had already returned their chá bēi unto the table, ready for the second cup. Not wanting to rush the sacred moment with the first steeping, I tilted my head down, closed my eyes, and softly withdrew the third sip to empty the vessel.
“This ancient growth tree is yet that of our grandparents’ generation, of their accumulated stories. Every leaf of every tea possesses enough stories to endure a lifetime. Listen well: what stories do you hear?”
