My Life as A Tea Leaf - 凱聞

„Hui Gan 回甘, Hui Tian 回甜, Sheng Jin 生津, & Hui Yun 回韻…In literally term, Hui Gan, sometimes referred to as Hui Wei, is to reflect sweetly on a past event. Borrowing from the term 'to reflect', Hui Gan in tea is, simply put, a reflection on the sweetness of the tea - when one drink the tea, when the tea slides through the cavity of the mouth into the throat, there comes, after a short while, a sweetness that rises up from the throat. This sweetness is sometimes accompanied with a fragrance. Do not keep the upper and lower mouth pressed together when sipping tea, but create a cavity instead by lowering the jaw. Let the tea wash over the entire inside of the mouth, and then direct the tea to slide from the sides of the jaw into the throat. While holding the empty cavity, breathe out instead of in after you swallow the tea, there is warmth in the breath accompanied by a fragrance, and the same fragrance that rises up from the throat. This is Hui Gan.“

„I found my early blogging efforts, basically writing down my impressions of the tea I drank every day, to be a worthwhile exercise – it helps me process what I’ve had and what I thought, and once in a while I go back to my own ideas back then and realize how I have developed as a drinker, as well as how a tea may have changed over time. Many of my earlier perceptions are flawed, if not outright wrong, or at least have been modified over time by my experiences since then. Writing about it constantly here helps me work through those thoughts.“