How do we learn about tea? Mostly through imitation. This process is also named 'mimetic'. We observe how a more experienced person is brewing and we then try to imitate what we saw. We do this instinctively, because that's how we have learned to speak, to walk, to dress, to write... Even the greatest artists start their career with a phase of imitation. We can think of Picasso or Gu Jing Zhou, the most famous maker of Yixing teapots.  René Girard, a French thinker, has based his understanding of man and society on this concept of imitation. According to him, even our desires are mimeti ..read more

Thé rouge d'été d'Alishan La machine à café est un endroit stratégique pour toute entreprise. L'idéal est qu'elle serve à plusieurs services, voire à toute l'entreprise. Ainsi, grâce à ce rituel les employés se retrouvent régulièrement et peuvent échanger des informations, des rumeurs sur la vie de l'entreprise et des gens qui y travaillent. Les amitiés qui s'y lient permettent de renforcer les liens de confiance. La pause agrémentée d'un contact social et de caféine permet de retrouver la motivation et l'énergie nécessaire pour bien faire son travail. La machine à café remplit donc ..read more

2024 spring Lily Flower Wenshan Baozhong It's summer, the best season to enjoy tea outdoors! We chose to brew early, because summer is the season of afternoon showers in Taiwan. We started with this lightly oxidized Wenshan because I like to start with a regional tea. Drinking a Baozhong south of Taipei helps to understand the connection between a tea and its terroir. This tea could have come from a nearby tea plantation. So, the aromas that exude from the cup are very similar to the scents in these hills. The trick, outdoors, with a Wenshan Baozhong is to brew it quite strong. Y ..read more

There are too many mentions of wine (125) in the Odyssey for a detailed analysis. So, I will start with explaining some concepts and then I'll analyze some key paragraphs which enlighten the reader about the meaning of wine in this story. It's quite unusual that a beverage should have such an important place in a book. And this book isn't just any book, it's one of the oldest and most important Greek classic. Many scholars see the Iliad and the Odyssey as the fundamental works for the the Western world. I will base some of my analysis on the concepts of René Girard which I explained here a co ..read more

Je vous montre le réchaud à gaz et la bouilloire en inox au pied du Chaxi pour vous montrer qu'il suffit de peu d'accessoires pour pouvoir préparer son thé dans la nature. A Taiwan, quand je vais dans les montagnes de thé, ce n'est pas chez le fermier, mais directement dans la plantation que je préfère boire mon Oolong! Ce n'est plus une connexion avec la nature, mais une immersion!! On sent cette nature printanière qui embaume l'atmosphère, on entend le oiseaux gazouiller et le soleil vient illuminer monts et forêts de bambou entre deux passages de nuages. L'infusion désaltérante après mon ..read more

My love of tea has led me to pay special attention to the meaning of beverages in art, history and literature. So, when I read the Iliad and then the Odyssey, I counted the number of times Homer mentioned drink related words. Spoiler: he never mentions 'tea', but mostly 'wine'! Still, it's interesting to analyze, because tea and wine are very much interchangeable in Chinese culture. They often even used the same porcelain wares to drink wine or tea! I already did the analysis about Iliad here, in French Iliad here, in French. A good online translator should be able to translate the text if yo ..read more

The word 'Shan Tou Qi', energy of the mountain, is the equivalent of the word terroir in French. It refers to common characteristics shared by produces coming from the same region. Indeed, it's possible to distinguish a Bordeaux red wine from a Napa Valley red and a Shan Lin Xi Oolong from an Alishan. But does it mean that all high mountain Oolongs from a specific mountain taste the same? That they are of the same quality? No, just like with wine, there are still great differences within the same mountain. For instance, you can experience the difference between these 2 AliShan Oolongs from 2 ..read more

C'est mon cours le plus important de l'année! Dans la vidéo ci-dessus, je réalise un thé à la manière des Tang (618-907) en suivant les instructions de Lu Yu dans son Cha Jing. Pour ce faire, j'ai utilisé un thé vert compressé de Corée appelé Ddok Cha, que m'avait offert Matt en 2008! (Merci à lui.). Cette démonstration résume donc le livre et montre comment les Chinois cuisaient le thé vert il y a plus de 1000 ans. Je trouve que cela permet de mieux comprendre comment on a pu passer de cette méthode à celle des Song ..read more

July 2022 In the summer of 2022, I stumbled upon this organic plantation by design. How can you tell which plantation isn't using chemicals as weed killer? One way is to visit the tea growing region unannounced and see for yourself in which plantation there are people taking care of the weed with their hands or simple mechanical means.    July 2023 That's how I found this beautiful Qingxin Oolong, which also happens to be one of the highest in the Chang Shu Hu area. This is important detail, because this means that chemicals sprayed on neighboring plantations are le ..read more

Comme un bon thé dont le goût vous reste longtemps en bouche, la joie de certaines rencontres continue de résonner plusieurs jours après qu'elle a eu lieu. C'est le cas avec Sven Schwannberger, un musicien allemand passionné par la période Baroque. J'écoute son exécution de Il Vero Modo, des sonates pour 'flauto e cembalo' de Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759). (On trouve ce CD sur Spotify avec la recherche 'Handel flauto', mais pas avec le nom du musicien!) Grâce à son généreux cadeau, j'ai le plaisir d'infuser un Oolong de ShiZhuo tout en écoutant ces magnifiques sonates. Je suis aux anges ..read more