Discovering Chinese Tea
Simon Lailey is a much-published writer who has traveled the world researching and studying the martial arts. He can be reached at Slailey@aol.com

As Westerners, it is all too easy for us to adopt a single aspect of Asian culture and think that we understand the complete picture. Often, though, all we do is isolate one segment of knowledge or information and apply that with our Western mind! A good example of this would be the current wave of interest in feng shui. But here I would like to address another area that is little understood: Chinese tea. To many, Chinese tea is not much more than a novel alternative to the Indian variety-or what we often call “English tea.”

The Variety of Chinese Tea

In China, tea takes many different forms. The Chinese concept of tea includes any kind of watery fluid flavored with herbs, or leaves, or grasses. Far more than a mere beverage, tea in China is frequently used as medicine which, if taken each and every day, acts as a preventive measure to keep you free from many of life’s daily ailments and illnesses. As cleaning and lubricating agents, Chinese teas also aid the functioning of the organs and the circulation of the blood. Vitamin C content in many teas makes them very good for the eyes, while sterilizing agents within some types of Chinese tea can also help to heal wounds such as broken skin and boils. Indeed, some teas can even be applied to open wounds to help speed recovery.

In the West, oolong tea (wulongcha) is perhaps the best known of all Chinese teas. In mainland China, the tieguanyin variety of oolong is the most famous. Another brand of oolong tea is the immensely popular wuyicha, which grows in the Wuyi Mountain range of Fujian province.

Pu erh tea is also well known in the West, because this is the kind of tea that one is likely to be served at Chinese restaurants, especially when dining at a restaurant in one of the many “Chinatowns” scattered all over the world. Pu erh tea is strong, refreshing, and deep red in color. It is famous as an aid to digestion, hence its popularity at everyday meals as well as at the banquet table as a typical Chinese banquet may consist of 15 or more separate courses!

One of the more obscure Chinese teas, as far as the Western world is concerned, is Dragon Well Tea (longjingcha). Indigenous to Hangzhou (a city in Mainland China’s Zhejiang province), this is an aromatic green tea famous for its fat-reducing properties a well as its ability to aid digestion.

Chinese tea is easy to make. Just put a generous pinch of loose leaves into a teapot, pour in freshly boiled water, and let the tea steep for three or four minutes. Boiling water is said to impair the taste, so the Chinese will always wait for the water to come off the boil.

Traditional Chinese tea is never taken with milk or sugar. There is, of course, no reason why you shouldn’t use such additives, but this is not the traditional practice, and using them will naturally reduce the tea’s medicinal qualities.

Tea and Kung Fu

The traditional Chinese martial arts, however, are one area where the true value of Chinese tea is kept well and truly on the boil! In Kung Fu, Chinese tea is still very much an essential aspect of serious training, where, in addition to replacing lost body fluids, it also serves as a cooling agent. It is a refreshing source of energy, though not excessively so, bearing in mind that Chinese teacups hold little more than two thimblefuls of liquid.

Some Kung Fu masters even concoct their own training teas and administer them to their students as part of the training program. Other schools, such as my own, keep to the time-honored framework, offering such well-known varieties as Iron Buddha Tea (tieguanyin or guanyincha) or pleasantly scented Jasmine Flower Tea (morlihuacha).

During my stay in southern Taiwan, my martial arts master never let me pay for my lessons. Instead, he asks me to bring him cigarettes every time I went to his home. I told him this made me uneasy, as why should I want to help him to his grave? The master simply laughed, informing me that I need not worry, for he would always drink a very special (and expensive) forms of Chinese tea that came from mountainous interior of the this beautiful island. This tea, he informed me, offset the ill effects and dangers of smoking. At that time my master was well into his 70s!

Essential, Yet Misunderstood

Chinese tea is very much underestimated in the Western world. Still very much an unknown quantity, tea certainly deserves to be viewed with fresh, impartial eyes. Chinese tea warrants far more attention than it has so far received in the West.

As time passes, even the Chinese are finding it increasingly difficult to keep such benefits in focus. With Western-brand teabags filling more and more shelves in the local Chinese supermarket, it would seem that China is forsaking its own tradition, jettisoning its culture in an effort to gain “face”.