In February, Ieva Virbalaitė, a tea ceremony specialist with many years of experience, introduced participants to Chinese tea and its preparation at the event "The Magic of Chinese Tea in the Background of Qi Baishi's Paintings."
The Chinese tea ceremony 茶道 (chádào) is an old cultural practice that aims to cultivate consciousness and harmony. It is closely linked to Chinese philosophy, religion, and collective thinking.
In this event, we focused not on the tea ceremony itself but on the selection, preparation, and tasting of the tea. I. Virbalaitė presented different types of tea and their growing techniques. Tea in China is classified into: green 绿茶 (lǜchá), black 红茶 (hóngchá), oolong 乌龙茶 (wūlóng chá), white 白茶 (báichá), and puerh 普洱茶 (pǔěr chá) teas. Each variety has its own unique characteristics. They are determined by how we process the tea, the age of the tea trees, and their cultivation characteristics.
The highlight of the event was watching the tea master prepare the tea leaves in the ancient way, by dry heating them and then pouring hot water over the tea leaves. During the tasting, we tried oolong and puerh tea. These have a wide range of flavors and are particularly popular with tea enthusiasts who want to understand the diverse world of Chinese flavours.
We hope that participants at this event learned more about Chinese teas, Chinese culture and discovered something new!