A Tea Reader (27 page)

We accordingly got up at day-break, and proceeded to visit the spot were the plants were cultivated. We were much struck with the variety of the appearance of the plants; some of the shrubs scarcely rose to the height of a cubit above the ground, and those were so very bushy that a hand could not be thrust between the branches. They were also very thickly covered with leaves, but these were very small, scarcely above ¾ inch in length. In the same bed were other plants with stems four feet in height, far less branchy and with leaves 1½ to 2 inches in length. The produce of great and small was said to be equal. The distance from center to center of the plants was about 4½ feet, and the plants seemed to average about two feet in diameter. Though the ground was not terraced, it was formed into beds that were partly leveled. These were perfectly well dressed as in garden cultivation, and each little plantation was surrounded by a low stone fence, and a trench. There was no shade, but the places selected for the cultivation were generally in the bottoms of hills, where there was a good deal of shelter on two sides, and the slope comparatively easy. I should reckon the site of the highest plantations we visited to be about 700 feet above the plain; but those we saw at that height, and even less, appeared more thriving, probably from having somewhat better soil, though the best is little more than mere sand. I have taken specimens from three or four gardens. Contrary to what we had been told the preceding night, I found that each garden had its little nursery, where the plants were growing to the height of four or five inches, as closely set as they could stand; from which I conceive that the tea plant requires absolutely a
free
soil,
not wet
and
not clayey,
but of a texture that will retain moisture; and the best site is one not so low as that at which water is apt to spring from the sides of a hill, nor so high as to be exposed to the violence of stormy weather. There is no use in attempting to cultivate the plant on an easterly exposure, though it is sufficiently hardy to bear almost any degree of dry cold.

By half-past 10:00
A.M.
we set out on our return, in chairs which we were fortunate enough to procure at this village, and reached the banks of the river at Aou-ee a little before one o'clock. In the first part of our way, we passed by some more tea plantations on very sterile ground. One in a very bleak situation, with nothing but coarse red sand by way of soil, seemed to be abandoned. Our reception at Aou-ee was much more civil than it had been the preceding day; the people suggested that we should remain there till a boat could be procured. The day, however, being tolerably cool, we crossed the river, and proceeded on foot along its banks to Kre-bo, where we arrived about 4:00
P.M.
...

...We found that one of the seed contractors had despatched a quantity of Bohea seeds, arrived during our absence, with a letter stating expectation of being able to send a further supply and to procure cultivators, who would join the ship in the eleventh or twelfth month. On the same evening I embarked on the Fairy, and reached Lintin on Monday the 17
^th
November, with my tea seeds, just one week after our landing at Hwuy Taou to explore the Hwuy tea hills.

I have been more minute in my details of this little expedition, than may at first sight appear needful, with the view of showing the precise degree and kind of danger and difficulty attending such attempts. Our expectation was, at leaving the ship, that we should reach the head of the bay by nine or 10 o'clock
A.M.
, and attain a considerable distance from Hwuy Taou the same day, and thus have a chance of passing without attracting the notice of any of the
wanfoo,
or government officers. Had we waited to ask their permission, it would of course have been refused, and we should have been directed in the most authoritative manner to return to the ship. We were not a little alarmed when aground in the morning, lest the old gentleman who measured our boat should have deemed it his duty to intercept our progress; but we took care to go on with preparations for our march, as if nothing of the kind was apprehended. It is this sort of conduct alone that will succeed in China. Any sign of hesitation is fatal. Had we shown any marks of alarm, every one would have kept aloof for fear of being implicated in the danger which we seemed to dread; on the other hand, a confident bearing, and the testimony borne by the manner in which we were armed, that we would not passively allow ourselves to be plundered by authority, inspired the like confidence in all those with whom we had to do; for the rest of the narrative shows that from the people left to themselves we experienced nothing but marks of the utmost kindness and good nature, except indeed, where money was to be got....

1
[Certain British spellings have been amended. Ed.]

2
A “
lascar
” was an East Indian sailor who was hired to work on a British ship.

3
A “
ghát
” is a broad set of steps or a passage that leads down to a pond or river.

4
A “
mow
” is equal to 240 square paces.

5
A “
pecul
” or
picul
is a weight of about 133
¹
/3 lbs. (approximately 60 kg).

The Invisible Companionship
of Tea

BY
W
INNIE
W. Y
U

A decade ago, my buddies and I climbed Hua Shan, known as the most treacherous mountain range in China. Expert rock climbers challenge themselves on this mountain, and the week before we embarked, apparently, ten climbers died in one week. It is little wonder then that throughout history, only Taoist hermits lived up there in those shrouded peaks, invisible and seeming to float in and out of the clouds. But you'd never see many temples or structures. The hermits lived in caves, carved out of the bare, vertical faces of the boulders. At 1,600 meters or so, Hua Shan was not really impossibly tall. Instead, it was the scary verticalness that many were challenged by. The bare rock surfaces were carved with slivers of shallow footholds, and we would ascend with the help of metal chains.

The first day of climbing and hiking was a straight eleven hours, a test of endurance, nerves, and the resistance to look down. By the second day, we were in some pretty far reaches and no birds or even ants were seen anywhere. Pine trees jut out of the crevices of the rocks. A sea of clouds were under foot. Many cave dwellings of the hermits were visible but impossible to get to. On the second day, we came upon the most intriguing cave of all: an inset on a sheer boulder the size of a closet, just tall enough for someone to sit cross-legged, and also just wide enough. Straw bedding formed a comfortable cushion for the meditator. A thatched screen of some kind served to shield the cave opening from the elements. No one was home, so I sat down on the straw mat, and noticed that the cave interior was just deep enough to hold one person. Looking out into the sea of white clouds, a sheer vertical drop of 5,000 feet below churned my stomach. Momentarily, I noticed something to my side, and it was a small stove powered by some sticks of charcoal. On top of the stove, a teapot. I sniffed briefly, and the tea inside must have been of a fermented tea like a
pu-erh
.

I sat waiting in the cave for some time, but the hermit did not return. Was this his entire home? Possibly. We had passed by many caves belonging to other Taoist hermits. They practice immortality by living on the dew drops on the morning plants, and flower petals mashed into wine. They can scale Hua Shan with the lightning speed of monkeys, and indeed, watching some of them fly up and down the mountain, you can barely see their straw shoes touch the rocky steps. They practice circulating their
chi
,
and various esoteric breathing and internal exercises completely unknown to the modern city dweller. But the one I did not meet apparently practiced drinking tea as part of his meditation. Did he subsist on tea alone? Or was tea his one and final worldly attachment? Did he travel to share his tea with another hermit that day we chanced upon his cave, or was tea his only friend? Seeing his teapot and imagining who this hermit was made an indelible connection for me.

Hua Shan was a mystical place. No tea bushes can grow on it; the rocks are too smooth and steep for any soil to settle on them. But the spirit of tea was abundant, the idea of transformation, of possibilities, of cultivation and exploration of self—the invisible experience of tea on Hua Shan. Tea has always been connected with society, of culture and sharing. But the people who dared to live on Hua Shan, took with them the one worldly attachment: tea. An old Chinese proverb came to mind: One can live without food for weeks, but not without tea for even one day! For some of us, tea was our constant companion, if not sometimes, the only companion.

If one can point to a seminal point where the idea of Teance
¹
was created, this experience was certainly one such defining moment. Tea is unlike other beverages. It connects invisibly through time and space, to the past and to others who find solace in tea. The companionship that is in that cup extends beyond the drinker's immediate surroundings. With my tea, I am connected to the Taoists who live alone inside a cave, thousands of feet up a cliff, wondering when they will find their next batch of tea. When I am drinking tea at Hua Shan, I am connected to my friends in Berkeley, struggling with their last bit of High Mountain
Oolong
,
wondering when I will bring back another batch. Thus,
Teance was created to connect the world of tea lovers everywhere, by importing tea directly from these remote mountain regions where they grow. The city-dweller can then share that universe of tea together in spirit with their Taoist counterpart from thousands of miles away, or with tea drinkers from thousands of years ago. Tea transcends time and space.

1
The Teance Fine Teas store in Berkeley, CA.

Tea in Tibet

BY
E
LIZABETH
K
NIGHT

One sweltering hot summer, bored to tears with my eighth-grade life, I escaped Dayton, Ohio by reading James Hilton's
Lost Horizon
.
I was enchanted by the tale of stranded travelers who found sanctuary at a hidden Himalayan monastery, called Shangri-La. Years later, I discovered that the first novel published in paperback had been made into a movie directed by Frank Capra. Munching popcorn in a darkened theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side, captivated by a revival of the classic, I never dreamed that I'd ever visit Tibet.

But last spring, a friendly Boston-based importer, whom I'd met on a tea tour of Darjeeling and Assam, told me about a China tea tour hosted by Dan Robertson, owner of The Tea House in Naperville, Illinois. Delighted to discover that the tour included a side trip to the legendary “Land of the Snows,” as well as an opportunity to sip butter tea with a local family, I signed up.

Tibet shares a border with Sichuan and Yunnan, two Chinese provinces that cultivated tea as early as the Qin Dynasty (221–206
B.C.
). Although Tibetan troops had captured tea, and other luxury goods, in numerous border wars, legend tells that tea from Sichuan was introduced—along with medicine, vegetable seeds, textiles, and the calendar when Princess Wencheng married Tibetan king, Songtsen Gampo (
A.D.
617–650). The dainty Chinese bride supposedly drank tea to dilute the powerful taste of yak milk. Later, she mixed tea and milk, adding pine nuts, and
ghee
(clarified butter) to make a nutritious drink.

Tibetans traditionally ate meat and dairy products because the cold climate and thin air of the “roof of the world” made it difficult to grow fruits and vegetables. Princess Wencheng's new beverage acted as a stimulant and fortified nomadic mountain dwellers against the fierce cold. Tea also aided digestion adding much-needed vitamins and minerals to their spartan diet.

Getting tea to Tibet proved to be a problem, however. Under pain of death, the Chinese Royal Court ordered that no tea plants, seeds, or even processed leaves mixed with seeds could be exported to other countries. Eventually, a network of trails was laid out over the treacherous, icy mountains. Caravans of Tibetan horses, medicinal herbs, wool, fur, feathers, and turquoise were traded for highly taxed “border tea.”

The processed tea leaves, especially those that came from Yunnan, were pressed into bricks to make them easy to transport. People broke the bricks, soaking crumbled, dried leaves overnight in water. The next day, the infused tea was churned in a wooden cylinder with salt, yak butter, and sometimes goat milk. The salt helped prevent dehydration; yak butter, with twice the fat of cow's milk, provided energy. This buttery broth-like brew, called
bocha
,
was poured into a copper or silver teapot kept on a low fire until ready to serve. After the tea was drunk, the butter residue, left behind in the cup, was spread on chapped skin.

The Tang Dynasty, and all the Chinese governments thereafter, used tea to control the border countries until 1949 when the policy came to an end. In 1951, The People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet forcing the ruling Dalai Lama to flee to India. Once the region was firmly under Chinese control, tea seeds and plants were shipped to the territory and technicians helped develop tea cultivation. Today, Tibetans grow their own organic green tea and also drink black Nepalese tea or
pu-erh
.

Long before ships shuttled tea from Asia to Europe, the Tang-Tibet Road and The Tea-Horse Road were the main trunks of the tea trail which wound through Nepal, India and Russia into Europe. Modern highways, and the world's highest railway (16,000 feet above sea level in some places) shadow the tracks of these ancient roads, but our tour group flew cross-country from Beijing to Lhasa, the spiritual and cultural capital of Tibet.

My adventure began on the plane when the director of Heifer International's China-Tibet program happened to be my seat mate. Delighted to use his English, Dr. Huosheng, who has a degree in animal genetics, was thrilled to discover that my husband and I support Heifer's global programs to end hunger and care for the earth.

Flipping open his laptop computer, Dr. Huosheng shared photos of various projects. Many poor Tibetans still live a nomadic life following their herds of sheep, yak and
dzo
(a hybrid yak-cow) to steep mountain pastures. The Tibetan Autonomous Regional Heifer Programs focus on improving animal breeds, disease prevention and raising animals in ways compatible with the environment.

Participating families are given animals and taught how to keep them healthy. The gift is passed on to others in the community when the animal reproduces. Boys as young as ten are expected to care for goats, but the government is trying to enroll children in boarding schools to learn woodworking, sewing, reading, writing and math. As a weekend beekeeper, I was especially interested to learn that bee hives have been introduced to replace the income lost when chicken and ducks were eliminated to prevent the spread of bird flu.

Every single photo showed rugged mountains sharp against an impossibly bright, blue sky. “The sky in Tibet is horrible,” Dr. Huosheng exclaimed. “It is so big and we are so small.” When I replied that I was looking forward to sunny skies after a week in dusty Beijing, he warned me that in spring, the amount of oxygen in the thin mountain air is one third less than usual. To combat altitude sickness he advised moving slowly, eating several small, high-calorie meals, resting often, and drinking lots of liquids. Chinese Red Flower and Tibetan tea would be readily available, he said.

Spring winds made for a bumpy landing, so the doctor stowed his laptop, but I was enthralled by glimpses of snow-covered peaks poking through the clouds. On the ground, our tour group was met by Tibetan guides who draped silk prayer scarves around our necks and helped haul our mountain of luggage onto a bus.

Dr. Huosheng was right, the effort of climbing just a few steps left many of us struggling for breath, but the view was even more breathtaking. Turquoise rivers snaked through stony ground staked with wind-blasted trees. Turnip-shaped, white-washed stone
chortens
,
containing the ashes of spiritual leaders, were crowned with flapping prayer flags. An old woman patted yak dung on a stone wall to dry it for cooking fuel. A man crisscrossed a plowed field, dipping his hand in and out of a shoulder bag, sowing barley seeds. Black and white yaks, tufts of red wool tied to their horns, watched me watch them as the bus poked along behind a huge caravan of Chinese army trucks.

At last, we reached Lhasa. The name means “the habitation of supernatural beings” and it has been Tibet's capital since the seventh century. The city, spread out over a stark desert plain, herded by mountains, is dominated by the thirteen-story Potala Palace. Set on the highest hill, the 1,000 room palace was once home to the country's secular and spiritual leaders. You can still see the private quarters of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, untouched from the day he escaped the invading Chinese army disguised as a Tibetan soldier.

After years of suppression, religious ceremonies are held here again. Prostrating pilgrims approach the complex clockwise, bowing and praying even before they enter the inner chapels. Many of the faithful tote plastic bags filled with yak-butter used to fuel lamps flickering before the images of their saints. Even though I'm not a Buddhist, I felt that I was standing on sacred ground.

Given the altitude (12,139 feet), the crush of people, and the smoky rooms, hiking up and down the steep stairs was dizzy, thirsty work. I was more than ready for a relaxing cup of tea. Our guides drove us to the entrance of a narrow street edged with whitewashed stone and cement block buildings, many with elaborately decorated iron-work doors. A short walk led to a courtyard, where we were greeted by a smiling grandmother wearing the traditional Tibetan full-length dark dress, a bold striped bangdian (apron) and bright red embroidered boots. Opposite her in the courtyard, the family had gotten a jump start on tea, heating water in a large metal kettle positioned over a “butterfly-fold” solar panel.

Inside, four generations presided over the tea table that was set up in the house's main room. Beds are pushed to the walls during the day, and low banquettes and stools are used for seating. The family offered plates of homemade cookies that looked like fat noodles, toasted barley, fruit, seeds, hard candies and dried yak cheese, which tasted a bit like aged pecorino. Strong, salty, milky black tea was pre-brewed and served from a Chinese-style metal thermos, but our hostess demonstrated making tea the old-fashioned way, in a wooden
Jhandong
churn, with a little help from her grandson.

We learned that tea is called the “water of long life.” Red-tinged tea, symbolizing good luck is served at festive occasions. Young men and women traditionally exchanged gifts of tea when they announced their engagement. In Tibetan monasteries, novices are responsible for preparing tea and serving it to monks while they pray. Lamas hold a morning prayer ceremony at which
tsampa
(roasted barley), is mixed with the tea to make gruel. This porridge is sanctified and served as a holy “tea offering.”

Tea is still drunk with every meal and enjoyed as comfort food at any time. Once upon a time, people carried a personal tea cup with them wherever they went. The cup was a wooden bowl, but our hosts were proud of their Western-style ceramic cups. Etiquette suggests that guests sip only half the tea in their cups leaving the rest to signal the host that they would like more. It is still considered hospitable to top off visitors' cups every time they take a sip.

After tea we were generously invited to take a closer look at our hosts' home, which included an entire room set up as a religious shrine—complete with holy images and butter lamps. The family embodied the Buddhist precepts of patience, compassion, and respect for all forms of life as they patiently posed for numerous photos and answered the group's many questions. The only question left unanswered is: when can I go back for
bocha
?

“May you be filled with loving kindness.

May you be well.

May you be peaceful and at ease.

May you be happy.”

—
Tibetan Buddhist Blessing