Mother’s Day in China without children makes me homesick. To my surprise one of my 11th graders, Vivi took me to her class on learning the tea ceremony. All in Chinese, she was so kind to translate the stories and process.

We sampled Oolong and Pu-erh Tea. Dried Oolong looks like little dark green beads, once it hits water, each bead opens into a leaf and is fragrant like flowers. The tea is steeped in a tiny pot with a lid then the water is poured out. This first batch is too bitter to drink. Hot water is poured in again, then strained into a tiny glass pitcher and poured in dainty white porcelain cups. You smell the tea, take the first sip as there are three steps to drinking. The second sip is to get the taste and the third you swallow the entire cup feeling the tea as it caresses your throat. Hot water is poured again over and around the leaves for maybe seven to eight drinking times creating very different tastes with the same leaves.

The teacher told stories about how the tea will calm a person in conflict. If you are at the work place and have someone that is not in agreement, tea is good to drink and during the drinking you will calm down and be able to discuss your problems. She told a story about an emperor and how he ruled. I only got bits and pieces of the stories as I was too calm to really ask many questions!

One of the advanced students wanted to do a tea presentation. She got out a Yixing tea set and opened a dried biscuit of Pu-erh tea that was five years old. Vivi proceeded to pop the tea with a pick to remove it from the dried tea biscuit shape. This tea has a red coloring unlike the oolong and actually smells like woody trees. She waved her hands around more like tai chi in her process. It was magnificent to watch. She proceeded to pour the tea in tiny tall cups and place a small cup on top of each one. With a wave of her hands and a flip she plopped the cups over and sat it before us. We carefully lifted the tall cup up and the lovely tea flowed into the round cups. You then run the tall cup around the rim of the other cup. That was so much fun, I bought a set of those cups. We continued to drink tea all afternoon creating a wonderful learning atmosphere.