My friend Ling has been coming into the Studio since 2013 and every time she comes she brings tea for me. She is proud of the teas grown in her home Province of Sichuan, and when possible she brings some for me to try. Ling visits here frequently for business as well as to see her adult daughter Su.
Ling ran into the Studio yesterday and, because she had her young son in the car, couldn’t stay, but presented me with bags of two different teas from Sichuan. (the tea… the tea… the tea…wow.) One is a black tea—mostlyl bud–that reminds me so much of the best Jin Jun Mei I ever tasted, and the other is a beautiful, fresh, white jasmine silver needle. The quality and freshness of both teas captivated me immediately upon opening the bags and the taste of each is lovely. There is quite a bit of both teas and I’ll keep sharing the gift with anyone who comes in and is interested.
On her prior visit, Ling brought a fabulous, fresh, authentic Lapsang Souchong from WuYishan (Fujian Province). It was lightly scented with smoke which let the underlying quality of the tea come through. I’m not a big fan of the heavily smoked Lapsangs available here in the US, but this was amazing tea (small amount), and promptly got shared with a few other tea people. Sadly, this tea is from a very small grower/producer and is not exported.
I first met Ling when she appeared for one of my classes, and then proceeded to take two or three other classes. She was just learning English and diligently used her phone app translator to follow what was being said.
Sometime in 2014 Ling wrote a story about Experience Tea and posted it on WeChat (at least I think this was the sequence of events) which eventually led to CCTV’s interest in filming my class for 2015 Chinese New Year.
Ling, you are one of the lovely, lovely people of tea…thank you for your generosity and sharing your gifts.