We just released the first teaser for our Taiwan Oolong Documentary! The Dance of the Tea.
This is the first installment in a series of teasers, all organized around elements of tea. This first is focussed on the actual leaves, farms and processing. You can see Dong Ding mountain and the tea fields there. The farmer we have bought tea from for a decade is in there, a thin man with white hair. He will show up in later videos.
Please enjoy and stay tuned for more teasers. We think the way the leaves dance is so beautiful!
Special thanks to Jake Knapp who filmed and edited the video and to Jon Davis who contributed music for this piece.
Embrace The Moon, School for Taijiquan and Qigong is the first sponsor for our Dong Ding Tea Documentary!
The founder and owner of Embrace The Moon Kim Ivy and I have known each other for 11 years now. I am honored to call her my friend and teacher. Two years ago I went back to take Taichi again, and our friendship grew.
She teaches hard and really cares about what she does. I have learned so much about taichi and I love it! I see a lot of similarities between tea and taichi. There is so much detail and endless levels to explore.
Then she started to come in to Floating Leaves Tea on Wednesday afternoon for tea. We tell jokes, gossip; sometimes talk about philosophy, politics and dreams. I show her what a good tea can do beyond just tasting good. We expirement with different styles of tea energy and see how they impact our Taichi practices. That has been extremely fun!
Since the first time I mentioned this Dong Ding Tea Documentary project to Kim, she has been supporting the project with money, encouragement and ideas. It's because of people like her and many of you who have believed in me that helps to push this project forward. Thank you!
We will continue to raise funds for editing and post production. To support this project, please visit our tea documentary fundraiser page here.
*photography by Jake Knapp of Cloud 9 Photography & Design.
In my previous post about my experience with charcoal roast master Mr. Zhan I mentioned a Four Roast Dong Ding. That tea taught me about what a good tea can do 10 months after I first had it. I purchased that tea in April 2016 and have been loving it to this day.
About two months ago, my tea friends Char of Oolong Owl and Andrew of The Happy Tea Man came to have a Dong Ding session with me. I tried to show them how a good Traditional Dong Ding not only has good, solid broth and great aftertaste, but also that it has the most amazing "expansion". I normally experience expansion with Cha Qi (tea energy). That day, the Four Roast gave me a wonderful surprise. The expansion this Dong Ding has takes two routes: one is the tea energy, which is super strong, and the other one is texture expansion. I felt it for the first time. Its texture was pushed into my body while the cha qi was happening at the same time. I can't really express how excited I was when that happened! Our friend, Jake of Cloud 9 Photography & Design shot a short video of us. I don't think I completely understood what was happening at the time. I only knew how AWESOME the tea was afterwards.
Two things happened in this Dong Ding Tea session that I absolutely love: friendship and expansion. I love it that tea is very communal. Tea brings people together. Tea allows us to enjoy not only its goodness but also the company that is there. Tea is expansive. Throughout these years learning about tea, I noticed that the right people with the right mind in tea sessions can open and hold a precious space for the tea drinkers. Char, Andrew and Jake are very open-minded people with great taste in tea. They helped to create and hold that precious space with me.
And a good tea is a great teacher! I am still AMAZED at how this Charcoal Roast Dong Ding still teaches me after so many months. When I realized the tea broth in my mouth was expanding into my body, the beauty of it was beyond description and it has deeply touched me. I thought of Mr. Zhan and how he could possibly craft a tea like this. He inspires me! His tea inspires me!
I am grateful and thrilled Mr. Zhan agreed to be interviewed for our Dong Ding Documentary. I look forward to learning more from him and to sharing with you some of his tea stories. We are scheduled to film the documentary in the first two weeks of July. We reached Phase 1 of our fundraising goal, and that is to shoot footage. Thank you all who have supported this project! We are now working on Phase 2 fundraising and we are half way there! We just need a couple of thousand dollars to hire people in our places so that each of our businesses can stay open while we are gone filming. Please consider donating and supporting this Dong Ding Documentary Project. Thank you!
