Tea is not a beverage…
Nov 9th, 2006 by Michael Max
It is not a leaf or region.
It is not a taste of bitter or sweet,
or a feeling in the mouth.
It is an unfolding connection between plants and rain, mountains and mist.
Soils, insects, sweltering afternoons of sun, and moonless nights of dark.
It is an art of timing, selecting and drying.
Bruising and rolling.
Roasting and laying fallow in ceramic urns.
Tea is a story, of which the drinking is but one chapter.
.
.
周智仁’s teahouse sits in a pocket of the tea plantation dotted mountains in Muzha. Taipei sprawls in the basin below.
But, just outside Zheng Zhi University, if you follow the signs toward 貓空, the road suddenly changes from tightly packed vertical shops full of the convenient necessities of life, to trees, quiet and a whisper of green scented air.
Ron Elkayam has taken the scenic route into Chinese medicine. He is on his way to China, via a few years of language study in Taiwan. He is not a stranger to the way life unfolds with a certain kind luminosity when you dare yourself to follow your 願望, your deep desire.
We wind up the mountain roads to 烏鐵茶道, and drink cups that taste like sunrises, moonlit rain, and whispered secrets.
