A Tea Reader Read Online Free

prepared leaf.
    It was in the second steeping that the sweet, fruitiness came through.
    â€œCan you taste the plums?” the tea man asked.
    â€œYes. And something else,” I answered.
    â€œThe creaminess. The way it makes your mouth feel.”
    â€œYes. That too,” I said. “And something more.”
    He continued telling me about the tea. It has many names. It may be called Bi Luo Chun , Pi Lo Chun , Green Snail Spring, or Green Conch Spring. Other times it is referred to by fragrance: Xia Sha Ren Xiang (Scary Fragrance.)
    â€œLike Halloween?” I asked.
    â€œLike awesome,” he answered.
    The legend of this tea is that one young tea picker had filled her basket but wanted to carry more. She filled her bodice with what must have been several thousand more shoots, enough to make another pound of dry, processed tea. The warmth of her body released the surprisingly strong aroma.
    It was the third infusion and the story that sucked me into this new world. It was the first time I tasted tea with awareness and intention. I tasted more than I could describe. I tasted more than just the fruitiness carried from the breezes blowing over surrounding orchards. I tasted the land, the soil, the processing and something of the people who had created my tea.
    The leaf was fully reconstituted after the third infusion. We compared the wet leaf with the original dry, all the leaves about 1/2 inch long, most of them a single bud or still attached in tiny sets of two leaves.
    â€œHow much per pound?” I asked.
    â€œSixty-nine dollars,” he answered.
    I spread some of the wet, spent leaf in the palm of my hand.
    â€œHow many leaves per pound?”
    â€œMore than 7,000.”
    The math was easy and staggering. Approximately $0.01 was the price for each leaf picked by that young girl, who then carried it back in her basket, for processing at the tea plant where the male workers dried it in several stages, including stirring it in a large wok over an open fire. It also included the packing, shipping, taxes, fees, and a profit for the retailer. The owner of the tea shop completed the equation for me.
    â€œThat’s less than $0.50 per cup.”
    He thought I was complaining about the price. Quite the opposite. The tea seemed rare and precious. I felt that the sense of value was not being fully appreciated.
    I couldn’t afford to buy an entire pound but I walked out of the shop with a small package and my head filled with images of a world of tea. I felt the connection to the people who had grown the tea and wanted them to feel my deep gratitude, to know that their labor was valued for more than the pennies per pound they had been paid. But how?
    The little sealed pouch of tea was difficult to open without scissors. But even the few minutes that had elapsed from the time I left the shop seemed to have intensified the aroma. I took a pinch and put it in my own bodice and finished my shopping, still tasting the third cuppa and feeling a bit naughty with my little secret.
    â€œNice perfume,” said the woman who sat next to me on the cable car.
    â€œThank you.” But I didn’t explain.
    That was several years ago and the price for a good Bi Luo Chun is now a bit higher, but not by much. I order some of the new harvest every year. It is one of the flavors I crave about the same time the new crop arrives.
    Is it my favorite tea? No. But it always touches my heart like a first love; the tea that seduced me. It is the tea that helped me understand the something else I taste in tea.
    Over the years, I’ve had the blessing of being seduced by more teas, each with its own story: a legend, a history, a bit of geography. Every cup of whole leaf tea makes me feel that I am coming to know the world in a more intimate and tangible way. I am coming to think of tea as the taste of peace on Earth.

Song of Tea or Writing Thanks to
Imperial Grand Master of
Remonstrance Meng for Sending
New