For many people, a cup of tea is important. To make a good cup of tea, one would need tealeaves, a kettle, a cup, at least. Some people would require a complete set of things to make a cup of tea. A history of tea can tell a great number of stories about tea and people. A story about a Buddhist monk is very representative: the monk had only a small pot. He boiled water in the pot. He cooked rice in the pot and he made tea in the pot. His way of life was highly appreciated by his abbot and can be seen in a book written then. The point I get from my reading of the past tea stories is what’s important is the serenity and enlightenment one attains by sipping a cup of tea. Over years I have sipped various kinds of tea and I am impressed with some.

For me, the best early spring tea is of course Dragon Well and the best time to drink a cup of early spring Dragon Well tea is the days before the Qingming Festival which usually falls on April 4 or 5. I remember visiting a teahouse in Dragon Well village in 2019 just before the Qingming Festival. We lounged around a tea table, sipping tea, looking out of the window, the tea aroma wafting from downstairs where a tea farmer is processing tealeaves in a wok. Some tea lovers know the best way to keep tea is to seal it in a plastic bag and shut it away in a refrigerator. My experience is that I don’t need such an elaborate way.

Over the past years I have been able to visit Huizhou almost annually. Last year I went there by high-speed train. Huizhou is where Mount Huangshan is and where there is a tea called Yishan Black Tea, which can be traced back at least to 1868. Unlike Dragon Well Tea, this brand presents impressively large tealeaves and the brew looks dark green.

Last year I received a small pack of Baihao Silver Needle as a gift from a poet friend. In October, I first made a cup of tea with this gift tea, which can be traced back to 1796 in Fujian. Early this year I made another cup of Silver Needle tea. It tasted very good. I am tightfisted about the 50-gram tea because I know this tea offers three peak periods for best drinking experience. The first peak period, or the best time to drink it, is within one or two years after the tea was processed. It tastes fresh like green tea. From the third to fifth year, the flavor becomes mellow and the brew looks dark and thick. The last peak period is from 7th to the 10th year. The brew tastes like black tea, though Silver Needle is considered white tea. Now I wonder what Silver Needle will taste like in seven years.

Produced in Sichuan, Ya’an Black Tea is another of my favorite tea brands. People in Sichuan, a province in southwestern China, prefer green tea. However, the black tea made in Ya’an is loved by Tibetans and it is therefore an unheard-of tea brand among many tea drinkers. Ya’an Black Tea is post-fermented. Tibetans love milk tea and buttered tea made of Ya’an Black Tea. Ya’an is the regional center for Ya’an Black Tea production. The tea produced in Ya’an is sold to Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu and some Tibetan prefectures in the west of Sichuan. Dujiangyan near Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, is another regional center of Ya’an Black Tea production. The tea products there are sold to regions of Sichuan and Gansu.

There are some other well known and not so well known tea brands such as Biluochun, Jinshi Shiyu best suitable for drinking in early spring time. By sipping these brands of tea, I have experienced joy, serenity, and many other flavors of life.