Tea and a Glimpse of Chinese Culture

June 28, 2007

Last Friday, I went to a Starbucks with my wife. The customer in front of us wanted a cup of tea; she was very particular in wanting “cha tea”, not “tea tea”. Do you know what’s the difference between “cha” and “tea”?

Madam Toastmaster, my fellow toastmasters, and most welcomed guests:

I grew up in a Tea Culture. I think I know the difference. There are many dialects in China. In a southern providence where the tea originated, it is called “Tee”. In Mandarin, it is called “Cha”. When it’s written down, “Cha” and “Tea” are identical. 茶. The difference between “cha” and “tea” is like the difference between PO-TEI-TO and PO-TA-TO.

To make a cup of coffee, you put in a spoon of coffee and hit the “Brew” button. To make 2 cups of coffee, you put in 2 spoonfuls. You expect the same result every time. That’s efficient, predictable, and repeatable. It makes every engineer and every American proud.

Not so with tea. If you ask a Chinese friend how much tea you should put in and how long you should wait before serving it, you will get answers such as: Well, it depends. What’s the weather like? What’s your mood today? What kind of friends are you serving today? Fortunately, you can always depend on a straight talking engineer to give you some practical answer: Experiment with it a few times. If you want it stronger, put in more tea or let it stay in the pot for a little longer.

The only thing you need to remember is that you should never, ever use a stopwatch to time it as if you were boiling an egg, because it’s just not the Chinese way. What IS the Chinese way, then. You would ask.

It is about enjoying whatever is served. Try to distinguish what’s different this time from the last time you had it. Try to compare it with life—the bitterness and the sweetness of life and what’s in between, what was your mood the last time you had tea, were your friends in good spirit?

It is about anticipating what your next serving of tea will be like. Will you be drinking alone, or with your spouse in your quiet backyard, or having a hearty party with a few friends whom you haven’t seen for a long time? I shall never expect that two servings of tea to be the same nor would I want it that way.

I’ve heard that there are scientific papers saying tea contains anti oxidants, which are very good for you and that they may even prevent some cancers. I think this completely misses the point. Tea drinking is not about physical well-being; it is about a cozy tete-a-tete with a friend in a cold night. As any cultured Chinese person will tell you: 有詩為證，there’s a poem to prove it. (Here’s a poem written some 700 or so years ago.)

It’s a cold night; a guest comes to visit.
Instead of wine, I bring out my tea pot.
In the flickering amber, the water starts to boil.
Outside the window, it’s the same moon I see everyday.
But just because there’s a plum flower,
the moon is entirely different today.

The plum flower means the friend. You don’t want to spell out “friend” or describe the flavor of the tea explicitly. That would be blatant.

Chinese culture is not about producing a product in a repeatable way. It is about enjoying things in a subtle way that you cannot express precisely, but you will feel it long after the event has come to pass.

So is tea-drinking. You feel the subtle after-taste that is neither sweet nor bitter. It is a little of both and yet a completely different concept. The Chinese language calls it 餘韻 “Yu-Yun”.
To experience it …

<Strike the bell. wait a few second. Strike it again.>

餘韻。 Literally the word means reverberation, resonance—the sound a bell makes after being struck. Figuratively it implies that something experienced stimulates the imagination and causes a positive memory to linger in the mind. Hard to tell when it ends. Everyone experiences it a little differently.
餘韻， that’s the essence of Chinese calligraphy, of Chinese brush painting, and perhaps many other Chinese art forms as well. Ladies and Gentlemen, That’s a glimpse of Chinese culture in a simple cup of tea.
Mr./Madam Toastmaster.
================================
寒夜 （杜來；？﹣﹣１２２５）

寒夜客來茶當酒，竹爐湯沸火初紅。
尋常一樣窗前月，才有梅花便不同。