My Journey of becoming a TCM Physician Chapter 20: Memories of being a Tea Connoisseur
It was super cold for the first 3 days of 2021, temperature dropped to 21 degrees Celsius. It was this temperature in the air that brought me back to the memories when I was staying in Beijing, again. Apologies to have deserted this part of the blog series but I just felt the ink ran out for this series. Nevertheless, somehow this cold weather got me inspired again. So much so that when I first hit home today, I reach out to my long abandoned tea cabinet. And dug all my tea accessories out and started making tea again, just like in a small corner beside my computer when I was staying in my little 200 sq feet hostel.
My Gai Wan盖碗, Gong Dao Bei 公道杯，and Pin Min Bei品茗杯 and many other tea accessories assembled over my 7 years in Beijing.
It must have been muscle memory that got me all into action again. Naturally I repeated the steps to make good tea with my Gai Wan盖碗, Gong Dao Bei 公道杯，and Pin Min Bei品茗杯. And when I took the first sip of the tea, it felt like I went back to Beijing, to my hostel room in the midst of winter. I almost cried. I sat there making a few rounds of the tea and just kept drinking, all the skills of me as a tea connoisseur (yes, I was certified as an Advanced Level Tea Connoisseur when I was in Beijing) came back. How to sip the tea to taste the most flavor, how to smell the tea, how to examine the tea colour, how to see the tea leaves… I remembered how I could travel 2 hours to go to the wholesalers of tea in Beijing to get some of my accessories and tea, how I was getting myself lost in the wholesale centre and how the smell of so many tea filled my olfactory senses.
I was super intrigued to go dig out my notes for my study of tea but to realize I have lost them in one of my cold hearted spring cleaning when I rejected a part of myself and my identity. ARGH……
But sitting there with my tea and tea accessories now, the memories flooded back when how this small daily tea ritual kept me company when I was typing my thesis and papers away in the freezing hostel room with two portable heaters right behind my back. How tough it was those days but how simple life could be at that time as a physician and an academician, just like how the teas were teaching me.
I can’t help but to wonder, what brought me here to where I am today?