Wild Tea Hunter: Hunting China's Ancient Tea Trees. Journeying to the Last Tea Artisans

By J.T. Hunter

Join JT Hunter, an aspiring American tea hunter on his tea hunting expeditions to find China’s ancient and wild tea trees. Find out for the first time the harsh truths behind big tea business and follow his journey to meet the last true tea artisans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781940085012

Book preview

WILD TEA

HUNTER

J T Hunter

Hunting China’s ancient tea trees

Revealing the harsh realities of big tea business

Journeying to the last true tea artisans

Copyright@2013 by JT Hunter

All captioned photographs by JT Hunter

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions

Printed in USA

ISBN 978-1-940085-02-9

Ebook ISBN 978-1-940085-02-9

Ebook ISBN 978-1-940085-02-9

Cover Design by Shana Zhang

Interior Design by David J. Frith

Publisher

Wild Tea Qi Publishing

Suite 401 Dong Jian Building

South University Road

Kunming, Yunnan Province

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated first and foremost to my teachers who helped make this book possible. To Dr. Wu; if it was not for you, I would not be where I am today. Thank you for introducing me to another level of appreciation of tea, and for opening the doors to a new life. I shall be forever grateful for your setting me on this path.

To all my Qigong and martial arts teachers, who gave me the gift of a lifelong practice that will forever be my center.

To all the people who I have left unnamed, who helped bring this dream to life. There are several of you whom I consider make the heart and soul of Wild Tea Qi and without whom, the company would have remained just a vision. Without you, none of it would have been possible. There are those of you who were with me at the early stages, when we were living in small, dingy apartments to save money to start the tea business.

To China, for opening my eyes to a new world, a new life and some of the most amazing people I ever met. I call you, China, my home.

To Wai-Lin Terry, who tirelessly edited this book to make my English coherent.

To my mother and father, who brought me into this life, and who gave their unending emotional support through thick and thin.

To all the tea farmers who are practicing their art from generation to generation, and who share these amazing gifts with the world.

Some names in this book were changed to keep confidentiality.

FOREWORD

From the Taoist mountains of Wuyishan to the remote mountains of Yunnan, JT Hunter keeps on his search for the exotic, wild and ancient tea trees and master tea artisans. JT, Founder of Wild Tea Qi, has studied with Taoist masters, Buddhist monks, and witnessed first hand the mysterious and age-old tea rituals and cultures of the native tribes of Yunnan.

A student of Taoist healing martial arts, meditation and Qigong for many years, he learned, while studying with a renowned Chinese medicine doctor, how to heal himself emotionally and physically with wild teas. This sparked his interest as he noticed that whenever he drank a particular wild tea, in this case an Oolong, he felt invigorated, his spirits were high, and his creativity flowed. He discovered that the energy or Qi of a tea is greatly influenced by the method of cultivation, and when it can grow strong roots into the ground, it produces strong Qi.

After his training, he went on to China to work at a free healing clinic, treating patients with a special form of Qigong Tui Na (Qigong Medical Massage) and Medical Qigong. While in China, he decided to explore the mountains where the magnificent wild Oolong came from.

It was love at first sight. When he came across the farmer and family on the mountain using the traditional cultivation and processing secrets as did 800 years of ancestors before them, JT knew he had a mission - to research and hunt down more wild teas.

Later in this travels, he encountered a mysterious Taoist monk in Wuyishan, who opened his eyes to a whole new world. He learned about the spirits of wild teas and how they have been used in many traditional practices, including meditation and Qigong, for thousands of years.

He opted to study more about the spirits of tea with this extraordinary monk, deep in the mountains of Wuyishan. His search next led him to the remote mountains of Yunnan, where he came across the native tribes who prayed to the spirits of ancient wild trees through ceremonies and rituals. The relationships between these tribes and the wild tea tree spirits date back thousands of years, and are rooted in the belief that the trees had protected them through war, famine and tumultuous times.

In his treks, JT saw how large-scale farms and unsustainable harvesting practices were destroying the environment while producing teas with very weak Qi. Teas were simply being mass-produced for large profits while the workers were earning poor wages. He was alarmed at how the master tea artisans were quickly disappearing, and how the various spiritual tea cultures were being lost in the rush to meet the mass demand for tea.

It became JT’s mission to help support the true tea artisans and to renew interest in sustainable tea growing practices. He created Wild Tea Qi, to introduce the amazing, spiritual tea cultures to the west, by providing sustainably grown, artisan wild teas with complex flavors and strong Qi.

Today, JT tirelessly continues his travels across China, going off the beaten track to dig deeper into spiritual tea cultures while searching for wild and ancient tea trees.

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

First Time in China

Childhood

Learning From a Third Generation TCM Doctor

The Real Hunt For Wild Tea Begins

Studying with a Taoist Master

The Making of a Tea Hunter

Learning Mandarin

Getting Cheated by Translators

Identify The Fakes from the Real

Industry Lies and Other BS

Stealing the Tea Princess From the Dark Side

Breaking a Chinese Family

Fair Trade; Is It Really?

How The Big Factories Deceive Organic Certification

Three Methods Of Organic Certification Deception

Is Rainforest Alliance Helping?

Hunting Down the Real Organic Tie Guan Yin

Taoist Tea Culture

Taoist Temple Tea

Taoist Tea Master Yu

Transcending from a Tea Taster to a Tea Feeler

Tea Qigong

Using The Five Elements of Tea for Healing

How is A Sour Taste Linked to Green Tea?

Table of the Five Elements

Taoist Tea Ceremony

Buddhist Tea Culture

Tribal Cultures of Yunnan

Wa Tribal Tea Culture

Yi Tribal Tea Culture

Hani Tribal Tea Culture

Hani Tea Drinking Tradition

Bai Tribal Tea Culture

Dawn Of A New Age of Tea

Tea Monoculture - The Destruction of Nature

BiodiversiTEA and How it Can Help Save Our Planet

Three Critical Reasons Why It Is Better To Drink BiodiversiTEA

Why You Must Be Vigilant of Where Your Tea Comes From

Teas For Sustainability

Ancient Wisdom of Ancient Tree Tea

Growing a Small Tea Company The Grassroots Way

Meet The Tea Masters

Tea Artisan Chen Mei

Tea Master Grandma Yang Xue Fang

Tea Master Yang Kai

Wuyishan Tea Farmers’ Collective

Yang Si

Tea Master Hei Che

Future Predictions and Advice on the Business of Tea for China

Tea Hunter’s Guide to Professional Tea Hunting

The harsh realities of sourcing teas

The Seven Golden Rules of Tea Hunting

Golden Rule #1 Find a Local Hound Dog You can Trust

Golden Rule #2 Cultivate Your Relationship

Golden Rule #3 Understand Face

Golden Rule #4 Spot Check Your Teas

Golden Rule #5 Eat What They Serve You

Golden Rule #6 Learn the Language

Golden Rule #7 Find Out Who Is Behind the Farmer

How to Identify Wild and Ancient Tree Teas From Standard Farmed Teas

Judging Ancient Tree Tea vs. Standard Tea by Taste

FIRST TIME IN CHINA

Iwas driving through dirty city roads in an almost unknown part of the world, Chaozhou in Southern China. There were no signs and I wondered how anyone could possibly find their way around here. Sitting in the front seat of small car with three other people, all of whom were natives of Chaozhou, we pulled into the small but busy city of Puning. This city seemed to be about at least 30 years behind any large American city. The driver was Chen, the brother-in-law of Dr. Liu, my longtime friend, teacher and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Doctor. In the back sat a young translator about 20 years old, whose English I could barely understand. He was seated next to Chen’s wife, Dr. Liu’s sister. As I stepped out of the car, bicycles, cars and people passed by me in a flurry. The streets were filled with vendors selling things of all types, from fruits to goods. I couldn’t help but notice that there wasn’t a single other foreigner in sight nor could I help but notice that every single person seemed to be staring at me in amazement. I felt like an animal in a zoo; they were staring at me probably wondering, what is this strange foreigner doing here? I knew then that I was far, far away from home.

The air was hot, dry and dusty as seems to be the case with much of Chaozhou, which is a dry and mountainous city in the easternmost point of Guangdong. I could not see the sun clearly as it was constantly blocked by a dusty haze. Rain must have been a problem because the mountains looked dry, and the trees and vegetation did not grow very tall. I later heard that there were many caves in the mountains but I did not get a chance to visit them.

It was only a few days ago that I was relaxing in the mountains of New Zealand by the ocean when I got a call from Dr. Liu who was in my hometown of Boston at the time.

Can you go to China to treat some of my patients at my clinic in Chaozhou? Dr. Liu spoke in a thick accent. Although he had lived in the US about 20 years, his accent was still strong.

But Dr. Liu, I am a 30 year old white American male who does not speak any Mandarin. How on earth will any of these people believe me that I can heal them with Tui Na and Qigong? I said, totally surprised that he would even suggest that.

Trust me, these are my patients, and if I tell them you are good, they will believe in you. Dr. Wu said, his tone serious.

Childhood

I have been studying martial arts and meditation since I was seven years old. My parents were health food fanatics, they meditated and did yoga every day. My father studied the ancient text of oracles, the I-Ching, and practiced Qigong and Tai Chi religiously. This was a normal way of life for me. At 12 years old, I started studying Yang Style Tai Chi. When I was 19 years, my father in introduced me to an intriguing Qigong teacher. At that point, I began a serious daily practice of Qigong and have continued ever since. I fell in love with Qigong, and wanted to incorporate some serious Qigong martial arts as I grew older. When I reached the age of 23, I began Emei Mountain Style Baguazhang under Master Liang Shou Yu’s teachings.

I also had a deep love of nature, which began with a 10-day hike into the White Mountains of New Hampshire when I was 15 years old. Two years later, I enrolled in a school deep in the mountains of Idaho that taught wilderness survival skills. We slept in a tipi for three months, and I hiked the Rocky Mountains for weeks at a time. I have since studied wilderness survival and wilderness living the Native American way with several schools. Due to that love of nature, I naturally took to Qigong, which bases many of its forms on the moves and habits of wildlife and believes that energy flows all around us in nature and within us.

Baguazhang is a mysterious Qigong martial art very well known in China, but is unknown to most westerners. Now I am an official Orthodox Wudang Shan (Mountain) Baguazhang seventh generation disciple of my life long master.

Emei and Wudang Shan are the two most well-known and popular styles of Baguazhang Qiqong, of which there are many variations. Wudang Shan is a mountain range in Hubei and the many monasteries there are Taoist temples. Emei Mountain is found in Sichuan and its residents include both Buddhists and Taoists. Although there are differences in styles and forms, most of the famous Baguazhang masters are known to have mastered both. This was the case with China’s most famous Baguazhang master in recent history, Lu Zijian who, on his death at 120 years of age, was acknowledged as China’s oldest citizen. Although he excelled at both schools, his lineage is linked to the Wudang Shan style, as Wudang Mountain was where he was born and where he lived during his first 20 years.

I like to point out some differences between these esoteric forms of Qiqong but note that these are based only on my own personal preferences, my teachers and my own state of mind at the time of training.

Hands: When I learned the Emei system, I had to hold my hand flat out in front, with the fingers spread apart and the thumb in a horizontal position. In Wudang Shan Baguazhang, I curved my fingers slightly as if I was holding a ball of invisible Qi. I could feel more energy flowing between my hands this way and I felt I was holding more QI.

Steps: There were significant differences here. The Emei step was like sliding forward in mud, which required that I first step out with a flat foot, and then take a little slide in the same direction. To smoothen the movement, I had to wear kungfu shoes