A Tea Reader (4 page)

Bi Luo Chun

BY
R
OY
F
ONG

Bi Luo Chun
has been prized since the Ming Dynasty and was selected as a tribute tea during the Qing Kang Xi era (1661–1722). The Kang Xi Emperor's grandson, Emperor Qian Long (1735–1795), was a great tea lover, and he reportedly enjoyed
Bi Luo Chun
very much during his visit to the area.

The ancient Chinese called the tea “Astonishingly Fragrant Tea” for obvious reasons. The name was later changed to
Bi Luo Chun
,
“Green Conch Spring,” as the tea was being selected as tribute to the emperor. “Astonishingly Fragrant Tea” was not a name deemed poetic enough for the Court. The Chinese have many words to describe the color green; “
Bi
” in this case means jade or sea color, algae green. “
Chun
” means spring, full of life, or young and tender. “
Luo
” means conch, describing the twisted spiral shape of the leaf. The word “
Luo
” can also refer to the beautiful lacy dress of an ancient Chinese beauty; the choice of this word was intended to add even more elegance to this ultra elegant tea.

It was not until after a few years in the tea business that I met this great tea close up. A trip to the
Bi Luo Chun
tea farm was arranged by my friend Chen Nong, whose sister-in-law was a city official from Shanghai. She arranged for me to meet with officials from Yixing and also to meet with some famous Yixing teapot artists. Since Yixing is very close to Lake Tai, where the best
Bi Luo Chun
are grown, I naturally asked to visit one of the most noted tea farms there.

I arrived at the farm in mid-afternoon and was greeted by the owner and offered a glass of tea from that morning's production. Hot water was poured into a tall glass and a handful of tiny dark green and twisted leaf sets were added to the water. The leaves slowly infused and gently spiraled to the bottom of the glass, opening up into small flower-like sets as they descended. The aroma of fresh sweet green filled the air. I waited until almost all the leaves settled in the bottom of the glass and took a sip. I still remember that silky soft and juicy mouth-feel without any hints of bitterness, the sweetness that slowly but surely filled my mouth and seemed to fill my whole being. All I could say to myself at that time was a big inward “
wow
!
”

Seduced by a Leaf

BY
B
ABETTE
D
ONALDSON

“How did you become interested in tea?”

I'm often asked this very general question for which there are many different answers, just as there are many different aspects to tea. A more appropriate question would be: “When did tea become important to you?”

And to that I must confess that I was seduced by the leaf.

The specific tea and moment came in a small tea shop in Chinatown, San Francisco. Seated on a short stool at the tasting table, the owner of the shop suggested I sample their high-mountain
Bi Luo Chun
.
He pulled a large canister from the shelf and tipped the lid to release the sweet, green fragrance trapped and intensified within. He poured some of the dry leaf—thin, twisted threads in a spectrum of green—into a small dish. As he measured the tea and prepared the water, he
talked
tea. He had been to the garden where this tea had grown. The women who picked and the men who processed the green leaf are people he had known for many years. His family had been buying this tea since they opened the shop here in the U.S. And he had been preparing and serving tea in this way since he was a child. It felt as if I was watching performance art and learning a new language.

The tea,
Bi Luo Chun
,
grows in the high mountains of Jiangsu Province of southern China. The tea gardens are planted close to peach, plum and apricot orchards drawing the sweet fragrance of the fruit blossoms into the tea leaves. The tiny shoots are picked in the early morning before the newest leaves open, when they are still covered with a soft, white down. The green leaves are then pan fried and dried quickly, shrinking the leaf into little twisted bits, trapping the flavor and sealing the lovely variations of color into the prepared leaf.

It was in the second steeping that the sweet, fruitiness came through.

“Can you taste the plums?” the tea man asked.

“Yes. And something else,” I answered.

“The creaminess. The way it makes your mouth feel.”

“Yes. That too,” I said. “And something more.”

He continued telling me about the tea. It has many names. It may be called
Bi Luo Chun
,
Pi Lo Chun
,
Green Snail Spring, or Green Conch Spring. Other times it is referred to by fragrance:
Xia Sha Ren Xiang
(Scary Fragrance.)

“Like Halloween?” I asked.

“Like awesome,” he answered.

The legend of this tea is that one young tea picker had filled her basket but wanted to carry more. She filled her bodice with what must have been several thousand more shoots, enough to make another pound of dry, processed tea. The warmth of her body released the surprisingly strong aroma.

It was the third infusion and the story that sucked me into this new world. It was the first time I tasted tea with awareness and intention. I tasted more than I could describe. I tasted more than just the fruitiness carried from the breezes blowing over surrounding orchards. I tasted the land, the soil, the processing and something of the people who had created my tea.

The leaf was fully reconstituted after the third infusion. We compared the wet leaf with the original dry, all the leaves about 1/2 inch long, most of them a single bud or still attached in tiny sets of two leaves.

“How much per pound?” I asked.

“Sixty-nine dollars,” he answered.

I spread some of the wet, spent leaf in the palm of my hand.

“How many leaves per pound?”

“More than 7,000.”

The math was easy and staggering. Approximately $0.01 was the price for each leaf picked by that young girl, who then carried it back in her basket, for processing at the tea plant where the male workers dried it in several stages, including stirring it in a large wok over an open fire. It also included the packing, shipping, taxes, fees, and a profit for the retailer. The owner of the tea shop completed the equation for me.

“That's less than $0.50 per cup.”

He thought I was complaining about the price. Quite the opposite. The tea seemed rare and precious. I felt that the sense of value was not being fully appreciated.

I couldn't afford to buy an entire pound but I walked out of the shop with a small package and my head filled with images of a world of tea. I felt the connection to the people who had grown the tea and wanted them to feel my deep gratitude, to know that their labor was valued for more than the pennies per pound they had been paid. But how?

The little sealed pouch of tea was difficult to open without scissors. But even the few minutes that had elapsed from the time I left the shop seemed to have intensified the aroma. I took a pinch and put it in my own bodice and finished my shopping, still tasting the third cuppa and feeling a bit naughty with my little secret.

“Nice perfume,” said the woman who sat next to me on the cable car.

“Thank you.” But I didn't explain.

That was several years ago and the price for a good
Bi Luo Chun
is now a bit higher, but not by much. I order some of the new harvest every year. It is one of the flavors I crave about the same time the new crop arrives.

Is it my favorite tea? No. But it always touches my heart like a first love; the tea that seduced me. It is the tea that helped me understand the
something else
I taste in tea.

Over the years, I've had the blessing of being seduced by more teas, each with its own story: a legend, a history, a bit of geography. Every cup of whole leaf tea makes me feel that I am coming to know the world in a more intimate and tangible way. I am coming to think of tea as the taste of peace on Earth.

Song of Tea
or
Writing Thanks to
Imperial Grand Master of
Remonstrance Meng for Sending
New Tea

BY
L
U
T'
UNG, AS TRANSLATED BY
S
TEVEN
D.
O
WYOUNG FOR
C
HA
D
AO
¹

The sun is as high as a ten-foot measure and five; I am deep asleep.

The general bangs at the gate loud enough to scare the Duke of Chou!
²

He announces that the Grand Master sends a letter; the white silk cover is triple-stamped.

Breaking the vermilion seals, I imagine the Grand Master himself inspecting these three hundred moon-shaped tea cakes.

He heard that within the tea mountain a path was cut at the New Year, sending insects rising excitedly on the spring wind.

As the emperor waits to taste Yang-hsien tea, the one hundred plants dare not bloom.

Benevolent breezes intimately embrace pearly tea sprouts, the early spring coaxing out buds of golden yellow.

Picked fresh, fired till fragrant, then packed and sealed: tea's essence and goodness is preserved.

Such venerable tea is meant for princes and nobles; how did it reach the hut of this mountain hermit?

The brushwood gate is closed against vulgar visitors; all alone, I don my gauze cap, brewing and tasting the tea.

Clouds of green yielding; unceasingly, the wind blows; radiantly white, floating tea froth congeals against the bowl.

The first bowl moistens my lips and throat.

The second bowl banishes my loneliness and melancholy.

The third bowl penetrates my withered entrails, finding nothing except a literary core of five thousand scrolls.

The fourth bowl raises a light perspiration, casting life's inequities out through my pores.

The fifth bowl purifies my flesh and bones.

The sixth bowl makes me one with the immortal, feathered spirits. The seventh bowl I need not drink, feeling only a pure wind rushing beneath my wings.

Where are the immortal isles of Mount P'englai? I, Master Jade Stream, wish instead to ride this pure wind back to the tea mountain where other immortals gather to oversee the land, protecting the pure, high places from wind and rain.

Yet, how can I bear knowing the bitter fate of the myriad peasants toiling beneath the tumbled tea cliffs!

I have but to ask Grand Master Meng about them; whether they can ever regain some peace.

Reprinted with permission from Stephen D. Owyoung and
Cha Dao
.
Originally published in the April 2008 issue of
Cha Dao
as part of “Lu T'ung and the ‘Song of Tea': The Taoist Origins of the Seven Bowls.”

1
chadao.blogspot.com

2
The Duke of Chou was also known as the “God of Dreams.” “Dreaming of Zhou (or Chou)” meant you were sleeping.