The progress in the Taiwanese way of tea can be attributed to tea’s long history in Taiwan and to the instillation of Japanese, American and European culture, including Dutch and Spanish. Today, in the National Palace Museum, you can see Chinese tea sets made a millennium ago, material evidence of China’s ancient tea culture. Taiwan is one of the few countries in the world capable of producing unfermented, partially fermented, and fermented teas, which it exports to over 130 countries and which have gained Taiwan a worldwide reputation for quality.

“The Seven Bowls of Tea” is about lifelong tea-aholic Lu Tong’s sensations while drinking seven successive bowls of tea.

“Song of the Seven Bowls of Tea”

What is tea? Upon first discovering tea, people only knew it as a medicinal infusion. As human wisdom worked upon it, tea was domesticated into an everyday beverage. But when tea flows into the human body, it produces a feeling of harmony with Nature that Tang-Dynasty poet Lu Tong celebrated in his “Song of the Seven Bowls of Tea,” a poem that has remained popular for over a thousand years, from the Tang through the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing, until today, and is as famous as Lu Yu’s The Classic of Tea.

Lu Tong was a “tea-aholic.” “The Seven Bowls” describes the gradual changes in the taste of tea over seven steepings.

Tea master Chao Kun-hsiu, who has studied the way of tea for more than 20 years, is the director of Peaceland Art Studio, which has held a number of major international art festivals in Taiwan. For Chao, tea is a vocation. For her, “inward contemplation” is the beginning, while the way is the idea that “tea only releases its perfume in a peaceful heart.” The culmination is “peace and harmony” in communication. With a commitment to “aesthetics and artistry,” Chao devotes herself to the development of Taiwanese tea culture while promoting international artistic exchange.

To show us the way of tea, Chao held a solemn tea ceremony in which she elaborated on all things tea. “The reason why I’ve spent so much time studying the way of tea is because my heart was like a seed burst from the fruit that began to sprout upon my first encounter. Since then that seedling has grown tall and strong, and I feel blessed, as if I’ve been at the right place at the right time with the right people, who helped me along the way of my spiritual journey.” Chou has a deep understanding of the truth that the seed of the way of tea can only sprout in a happy heart and grow in one who seeks fulfillment through cultivation in the realm of tea.

A bowl of cozy-warm security in hand, you engage in an exercise in mental discipline.

In the beginning

The first bowl in “The Seven Bowls” steadies the heart. “The first bowl only moistens lips and throat.” People are usually unprepared for the first bowl. Drinking a tea of high quality, they just think “it tastes good.” Unenlightened observers often wonder why the way of tea requires so many complicated steps and aesthetic embellishments. That is because the function of the first bowl of tea is often just to quench people’s thirst, that is to say, to relieve the human animal’s physiological need to drink. It is only with the second bowl that one begins to appreciate the aesthetic subtleties.

“The second bowl can break one’s loneliness.” After drinking the second bowl of tea, people’s bodies warm up and relax, producing a sense of physical security. They start to observe an ambiance in the surroundings that is qualitatively different from that of ordinary daily life. Their minds become quiet and clean.

As it is written in The Diamond Sutra, one “should realize this state of mind by abiding nowhere.” Chao has found that the way of tea is a truly gradual process of settling down that begins with the body and proceeds to the mind. Only when they feel settled, peaceful and secure can people attain clear minds and resolute hearts.

“The third bowl purifies my heart and mind, and what remains is words of wisdom stored in all the books I’ve ever read.” After drinking the third bowl, people start to worry about the individual in relation to society. Whither human society in a world without love, especially today? Without love, there will be no future. And then there would literally be “nowhere to abide.” Thus, how can a tea drinker who loves both self and society remain indifferent to people and things around them?

“The fourth bowl causes one to lightly sweat, flushing doubts and troubles through the pores.” Drinking the fourth bowl, one realizes that to everything there is a season, and there will always be ebb and flow in any life, highs and lows in any land. You should therefore change what you can and accept what you can’t.

“The fifth bowl purifies my flesh and bones. The sixth bowl is communion with the saints.” Drinking the fifth and sixth bowls in a row boosts the body’s energy and clears the mind, making you realize that the power of love has a source, and that one can train the mind and settle oneself down by drinking tea. Via inward contemplation, and continual, repeated training, one can attain a sense of joy.

“The seventh bowl I do not taste at all, I only feel a wind beneath my wings.” The seventh bowl is a chance to enter a realm where one is touched by all the graces of life. This is how drinking tea touches one, transforming one’s emotions and awareness. This is the source of its power.

A solemn tea ceremony is an invitation to enter upon the happy way of tea. (photo by Lin Ming-lung)

Subjective awareness and aesthetics

But what should people do to experience the same sensations as Lu Tong? “If you’ve never savored the flavor of a bowl of tea, you will never know the profundity of feeling that lies within,” says Chao Kun-hsiu, almost intoxicated with the taste.

“Awareness in the act of drinking tea is a way to care for one’s self. It takes time to master the materials and attain a true tea sensibility.” As one repeatedly steeps tea, the flavor goes from fragrant to flat, from sweet to insipid. The seven bowls are just like the stages of life, from birth to age, sickness and death, as the Buddhists sum up the sorrows of existence. Yet the insight granted by successive steepings is the power of the present moment.

Taiwan’s tea processing craft has undergone long maturation and refinement. There are collectors of old teas and antique tea sets from different eras, but there are also laboratories where the way of tea is studied, substantially enriching the way of tea. For instance, selection of the bowl by the shape of its mouth, the era, and the material can produce different mouthfeels—different textures in the mouth—not to mention teas of different vintages and teapots from different dynasties. After all, the way of tea is a study in the awareness of the beautiful subtleties of life. Without these essential emotive elements, the way of tea would be mere performance and storytelling.

Taiwan, the place to go to gain profound insights into the way of tea, can only be described as a happy land of tea.

The more time and energy one spends on oneself by studying tea, the more inner strength one develops.

The traditional way of tea was a social, artistic and ritual activity, and a form of personal cultivation. Now it’s been given a make-over as new aesthetic elements have been mixed in. (middle photo by Lin Ming-lung)

The traditional way of tea was a social, artistic and ritual activity, and a form of personal cultivation. Now it’s been given a make-over as new aesthetic elements have been mixed in. (middle photo by Lin Ming-lung)

The traditional way of tea was a social, artistic and ritual activity, and a form of personal cultivation. Now it’s been given a make-over as new aesthetic elements have been mixed in. (middle photo by Lin Ming-lung)