Thursday, April 18, 2013

A Pu'er Tea Exhibition : "Now I believe!"

Last week, Teaparker and I returned to Penn State for the Pu'er Tea exhibition organized by the Tea Institute. Most events, tea classes, happened at the Ritenour building where the institute is located.
Ritenour building

The subjects were puerh historical cakes, the best suitable brewing methods, suitable wares, puerh quality: blending or single mountain...

Each class consisted of a theoretical part and then practical exercises. We set up several Cha Xi every day, brewed tea in turns. We let everybody express what they felt with each cup of tea.

At the end of our last class, each Tea Institute member gave us some feedback concerning the classes. They were pleased with the wealth of information they learned, and were glad to taste some great puerhs. The combination of the 2, clear knowledge and high quality teas has created a new level of understanding. 

For instance, Murph said that before this week, he didn't believe that you could taste somebody's state of mind through the tea that he brews. "But now I believe! Yesterday, I could taste my nervousness in my tea cup."

Tea can seem magical at times. But with the right study and focus, we can all understand tea. And the more we respect tea and pay attention to our brewing, the better our tea becomes. This creates a positive feedback that leads to more study...


4 comments:

Alex said...

Stephane, the next time you're going to be doing a tea exhibition four hours from my house, can you please post about it BEFORE it happens so I have a chance to attend?

Wishing you well,

Alex

TeaMasters said...

Hi Alex,
I would have loved to meet some of my readers in the North East of the USA. I did mention my going there in the last post, but didn't give much specifics about when and why. In retrospect, give that most of the events were public, I agree I should have promoted this exhibition in advance.
See you in 2 years maybe!

Alex said...

Next time then! Or maybe I'll get over to Taiwan one of these days.

Nick Herman said...

Thanks for spreading the gospel on this side of the shore. Tea culture is still basically nonexistent here. Most people think "loose leaf" anything is exotic, and sadly, what I see more than genuine sellers interested to share the beauty of tea with the uninitiated, are Chinese businesspeople trying to cash in on some exotic image to whiteys in Chinatowns.