SEASONAL TEA CLUB

Spring 2026

January 8th. Winter arrived late this year, and only faint hints of spring move through the air. This morning, walking through the forest in silence as snow fell around me, I found myself reflecting on the past three months. Many of the themes explored in the winter tea club surfaced: turning inward, stillness, depth, lineage, resources, safety, and my relationship to fear. I also found myself questioning the illusion of progress that holds Western civilization in a relentless race toward intellectual, technological, and material achievement. I thought about the cultural values we absorb without noticing, and how easily they obscure our deepest and most essential longings. Breathing in the cold air and feeling the snow crunch beneath my feet, I contemplated being and doing as a single movement, and sensed the importance of stillness as a form of receptivity, integration, and wisdom.

My partner’s father passed away in December. He was surrounded by family during his final days, and in speaking with his daughters, they described the experience as profound and beautiful. They recognized the rare privilege of being present through the transition as witnesses and companions. Metaphorically, winter and the water element are deeply connected to death: the great mystery, the unknown, the hidden and the deep, stillness, ancestors. Life is born in water and sustained by it. It moves through water and ultimately returns to it. Water is the element of endings that are also beginnings, the quiet force that dissolves form back into source. Even at a cellular level, aging reflects a gradual loss of internal water and flow, as the body turns inward to conserve its reserves against the long cold. Across biology, psychology, myth, and ritual, water functions as a threshold, linking life to dissolution and return.

In trying to be present, supportive, and loving in the face of grief, I’ve come to recognize the limits of my own relationship to death. Most of us raised within modern Western culture share this limitation. In a society obsessed with productivity, growth, ambition, and youth, death is treated as an ending or interruption, something to be avoided or feared. We fear our own mortality, the fragility of the body, the loss of those we love, and the uncertainty of what lies beyond the known. When death is denied, culture becomes shallow and mechanical, focused only on appearances and outcomes. Yet death has a way of stopping us. There is nothing to optimize, nowhere to go except fully into the present moment. Death dissolves form into the formless and teaches us surrender, honesty, and the truth of our attachments. It gives life depth and gravity. When we allow death to inform our living, wisdom naturally arises, along with reverence and care. In recognizing the impermanence of all forms, including our own, we begin to sense that something essential in us is not subject to death. That awareness is consciousness itself, the formless life that cannot be lost. Understanding how temporary all forms are makes it easier to live from a place of love instead of fear.

Ethereal Gate
MK Gongting Shou Puerh– 2005
Mengku Region, Lincang, Yunnan China

Ethereal Gate is an evocative ripe puerh from Lincang Prefecture in southwest Yunnan. Wet-stored in Malaysia since 2005, yielding a tea that is dark, clean, generous, and energetically open. Pressed from fine-grade Gongting material using first-grade Te Ji leaves, this tea is shaped by humid, subtropical aging that gives it an immediately “ready” character. The liquor is inky and thick, coating the mouth with a smooth, silken body. Flavors of cacao and gentle spice unfold over a clean underlying sweetness.

Despite being a ripe puerh, the Qi leans closer to that of well-aged sheng—spacious, dreamy, and euphoric. There is a mouth-watering quality and long patience to the tea. This balance of density and lightness is characteristic of Lincang-grown material: less overtly earthy, more refined and luminous.

The name Ethereal Gate speaks to the threshold quality this tea carries, ideal for the end of the wood snake year as we integrate the last of what needs shedding before the energetic transition in early February. It's a tea for moments of transition where endings reveal our attachments and beginnings illuminate our desires. In the language of the Five Elements, when death is faced consciously in winter, it becomes the root that allows life to rise in spring without strain. Nourishing Water allows Wood to grow flexible and clear rather than brittle or overreaching. This tea honors that passage: a companion for finishing the old cycle and stepping forward unforced, grounded, and awake.

One question to ask with this tea: What ended cleanly this winter, or wants to end? What would it look like for it to end in a way that feels complete, wholesome, clear and wise? 

Brewing Method: We suggest starting with 4-6 grams as this is a flavorful tea, and decide if you want to brewer it stronger with more leaf. Our favorite method is a small Sidehandle Bowl Tea, but it also brews nicely gongfu. For brewing method guidance, please refer to the Brewing Guide on Living Tea’s website.

Water Temp: 205 D Fahrenheit

Steep Time: Very short initial steeping (2-3 seconds) then longer as the session progresses. Yields 8-10 nice full-bodied cups. The practice of short steepings is different than European tea whereby you steep the tea for a long time. 

The Transition from Water to Wood

Transitioning from the water element in winter to the wood element in spring invites a shift from depth and stillness into growth, movement and direction, without abandoning what was learned in the dark. In earth-based wisdom traditions, time is not linear but cyclical: decay feeds life, and what appears finished is quietly transforming. Turn over a fallen branch and you find life swarming within and beneath, a grand metamorphosis at work. From this view, death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite.  The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal transformation and continuity. Our ancestors live through us as us. We honor them by carrying the lessons we've learned through our ongoing relationship with them and with ourselves. When we lose someone we love, or when an identity moves from form into formlessness, the pain often comes from the collapse of an unconscious identification: a part of “me” that no longer exists. The mind rushes in to create a feeling of closure. It creates stories to make sense of the space. Whatever was unfinished or unresolved becomes amplified. Strong feelings might arise in an attempt to maintain psychological continuity. Beneath those stories is an empty space. When that space is faced rather than avoided, it reveals itself not as annihilation but as an openness that is quiet, vast, and peaceful. Many wisdom traditions point to this sacred space. By accepting impermanence and meeting our deepest fears, we loosen the egoic grip that experiences life through the personal sphere. We come to honor the ancestors who live within our DNA by creating a good, true and beautiful life that honors the life they gave us. 

Winter’s Water element teaches us to dwell in silence, emptiness, and gestation; spring’s Wood does not reject that depth and stillness but rises from it. If there is no final death, only transformation, then the real question becomes: What are you doing during this season of your life that is most aligned with who you are? What does life want to express through your uniqueness? Wood arises when that depth is not bypassed but integrated. Wood is growth, vision, and commitment. Wood energy carries the willingness to face everything within ourselves- past, present, and future- without denial, shying away or repression, allowing relationships and society itself to become paths of awakening. It represents a total commitment to growth and the recognition that all life experience can be harnessed for growth. However, healthy Wood is nourished by Water. It knows that progress is not mere acceleration or expansion, but conscious effort aligned with truth, purpose and direction. Time, seen cyclically, asks us not just where we are going, but what we are carrying forward from what has already transformed. A major sign of healing and awakening is that more of our attention and awareness is focused on the life we are creating than on what has "happened to us" in the past. If life has already said yes and you are an expression of that "yesness", then Wood’s task is to respond with action that is nourished by silence, presence and trust. Growth that remembers its roots is balanced and healthy, allowing us to use our time in a way that serves awakening rather than escape. If there are no enlightened beings, but only enlightened actions, what does it mean to wake up?

The Scholar’s Study
Taiwanese Assam Red Tea 2025 

Sun Moon Lake

The Scholar’s Study is a refined Taiwanese red tea from the famous Sun Moon Lake region. The aromatic tapestry has rich cinnamon notes. The brew reveals a clear, vibrant reddish-golden color with warm spices, ripe fruit and mintiness.  The balanced, smooth, lingering sweet finish leaves you wanting another steeping. The mouthfeel is plush and mellow, with minimal astringency, allowing the gentle structural complexity to unfold. 

This tea is shaped as much by place as by processing. Nestled at the foot of Baiye Mountain, the garden, once known as Xiancai Weng, has been tended for decades by veteran tea farmer Mr. Xu Tangkun, whose devotion to organic tea has endured through the changing times of Taiwan’s red tea history. Organic cultivation, rigorous hand-picking, and reverent processing allow the vitality of the trees and the clarity of the land to come through. It was the first black tea farm in Taiwan to receive international organic certification, a reflection of both integrity and persistence.

In the Seasonal Tea Club, The Scholar’s Study serves as a bridge between seasons. While winter teas root us- descending, warming, and teaching the body how to store- this tea begins the ascent toward spring. It rises gradually, without jitter or urgency, supporting clarity of thought and ease of movement. Like a scholar’s desk in the morning light, it creates a space where attention gathers naturally and the next season reveals itself without being forced. The time also speaks to the refined antique feeling of the tea. 

Questions to ask with this tea: What future images or longings return to me again and again? What part of my vision have I postponed out of fear or obligation?

Brewing Method: We suggest starting with 5-7 grams as this is a flavorful tea. Our favorite method is a small Sidehandle Bowl Tea, but it also brews nicely just leaves in a bowl as the big leaves easily drift to the bottom. For brewing method guidance, please refer to the Brewing Guide on Living Tea’s website.

Water Temp: 205-210 D Fahrenheit

Steep Time: Very short initial steeping (3-4 seconds) then longer as the session progresses. Yields 5-7 nice full-bodied cups. 

Cultivating the Wood Element

In the winter tea club, I explored the relationship between Being and Doing. Winter and water ask us to slow down, listen, and gather our energy. Spring and wood ask a different question: what wants to move now? When being and doing are held together, action becomes clear rather than reactive, and growth arises from awareness rather than force. Tea practice supports this balance by grounding movement in presence, so that effort is aligned rather than scattered.

I also reflected on the meditation practice of Silent Illumination as taught by Guo Gu. Though it appears still, this practice trains a responsive and awake attention. Doing is not driven by strain or ambition, but by clear awareness meeting each moment directly. From this clarity, movement becomes precise and appropriate. Silence stabilizes the mind, while illumination allows insight to guide action.

Spring is a season of vision, direction, and unfolding potential. Yet without depth and rootedness, growth can become unfocused or excessive. Water qualities such as stillness, observation, and alignment provide the ground from which healthy wood energy can rise. Working with the elements is an active process of noticing patterns, making adjustments, and cultivating momentum over time. Presence developed through tea and meditation sharpens our capacity to recognize when and how to move.

As wood energy comes forward, it invites engagement. Progress may look like taking a long-delayed step, speaking a truth that has been held back, or clearing something that has blocked movement. Spring brings energy to the edges, asking us to meet what has been avoided and to claim the space created by winter’s release. What is ready to grow, and what direction does it want to take?

When wood energy is obstructed, frustration and anger often appear. Rather than seeing these as problems, we can recognize them as signals pointing toward necessary change. Where energy is tight, movement wants to happen. Wood functions best when direction is clear and effort is guided by purpose rather than control. When aligned, growth feels spacious and alive, ideas take form, movement becomes possible, and momentum carries us forward.

Honey Wind 

Taiwanese Shan Lin Xi Red Tea 2025

Honey Wind is a lively, fresh Taiwanese red tea (black tea in Western tea culture) from Shanlinxi, one of Taiwan’s most celebrated high-mountain tea regions. Harvested in spring 2025, this tea offers sweet melon, apricot and citrus peel notes with a bright, energizing finish. The natural gilt of honey comes from the bug-bit leaves, which release nuanced sugars when the small green-leaf cicadas nibble the edges. The presence of the cicacads indicate that the trees are grown without pesticides and chemicals, markers of careful, environmentally-conscious cultivation and healthy trees. 

Shanlinxi is located in central Taiwan at high elevation, where cool mountain air, mist, and cloud cover slow the growth of tea leaves. This slower growth preserves delicate aromatics in the leaf. While Shanlinxi is famous for green oolongs, growers here also produce excellent red teas that carry refined floral and fruit qualities, characteristic of oolong, paired with a clean sweetness.

Many Taiwanese teas (including this one) are made from local oolong cultivars that, when fully oxidized, enter the category we call red tea. The cultivar isn’t a single named variety here, but rather the classic high-mountain oolong genetics that express floral complexity when processed toward full oxidation.

Honey Wind was named for the sweetness of slow growth, the brightness of spring and the liveliness of mountain terroir. The sweetness stimulates wood element creativity and the gently uplifting energy supports outward movement as we transition into the active time of the year. 

Questions to explore with this tea: What teas prompt a clear, creative energy for you and do you choose your daily tea based on flavor or feeling? Do you note these characteristics in your daily practice?

Brewing Method: We suggest starting with 6-8 grams as this is a flavorful fruity tea. Our favorite method is a small Sidehandle Bowl Tea, but it also brews nicely gong fu. For brewing method guidance, please refer to the Brewing Guide on Living Tea’s website.

Water Temp: 210 D Fahrenheit

Steep Time: I like brewing this tea strong with initial infusions between 5-7 seconds, then longer as the session progresses. Yields 5-6 nice full-bodied cups. 

Vision and Imagination

Wood is not only growth in form, but growth in vision. It is the element of imagination, the living capacity to sense what is possible before it takes shape. William Blake wrote that imagination is not a state but human existence itself. Imagination isn't a temporary feeling or "state"; it's a permanent, essential human quality, like breathing. From this perspective, imagination is not escapism or fantasy, but perception unbound from habit. It is the ability to see beyond what has been inherited, repeated, or unconsciously assumed. Wood energy arises when this imaginative faculty is allowed to function, when life is no longer reduced to survival or repetition, but opens into creativity, meaning, and conscious participation in becoming.

Our culture, however, rarely supports this dimension of Wood. As Oscar Wilde observed in The Soul of Man Under Socialism, most people are consumed by labor that leaves little time or space for creative life. The tragedy is not effort itself, but effort disconnected from imagination. When work absorbs our attention entirely, consciousness contracts around necessity and efficiency, and the deeper movements of vision and creativity are postponed indefinitely. Wilde imagined a future in which machines would relieve human beings of repetitive and exhausting labor, not so we could produce more, but so we could live more fully. Cultivated leisure, in this sense, is not idleness. It's the space in which creativity, insight, and authentic individuality can emerge. In an enlightened society, we would be developing our current technologies in service to this pursuit, creating the space in our lives for inner development and creative exploration. 

Seen through the lens of the Wood element, the future of consciousness depends on whether we reclaim imagination as a primary organ of perception and action. Wood energy isn't solely about directionality and growth. It first asks the deeper question of what vision do we hold that wishes to emerge through our creativity? When imagination is nourished by the stillness and depth of Water, creativity becomes rooted rather than impulsive, and action becomes an expression of inner truth rather than social conditioning. In this way, Wood carries winter forward into spring, translating silence into form, and depth into direction. The invitation of this season is not simply to grow, but to grow consciously, allowing imagination to shape a life that is not merely productive, but meaningful, alive, and aligned with what we most deeply know to be true.

What is your imagination opening toward now, and how are you making space for its unfolding?

Oriental Beauty

Bai Hao Oolong

Longtan, Taiwan 2025 

This Oriental Beauty from Longtan offers a clear and expressive take on a classic Taiwanese tea. Made from the Jinxuan cultivar, balancing softness and brightness, the luminous amber brew offers notes of honey, stone fruit, and soft florals. The texture is smooth and rounded, with a lingering sweetness that feels both nourishing and creatively uplifting.

Longtan’s climate and careful cultivation support the natural aromatic complexity of this style, allowing the tea’s sweetness and fruit-forward character to emerge with ease. Jinxuan’s Oolongs subtle nature provides a stable base for these qualities, resulting in a tea that feels open, integrated, and alive. 

As the final tea in the club, Oriental Beauty reflects spring tea at its finest, and this particular Oriental Beauty is a quintessential harvest. It invites expression without urgency, offering a moment to sit with clarity, imagination, and the quiet momentum of growth.

Brewing Method: We suggest starting with 4-6 grams of this delicate tea. Our favorite method gong fu with small cups and a zisha pot. For brewing method guidance, please refer to the Brewing Guide on Living Tea’s website.

Water Temp: 190 D Fahrenheit

Steep Time: Oolong is notoriously particular about the brewing. Make sure the water isn't too hot and the initial steepings are just flashes, then longer as the session progresses. Yields 6-8 nice full-bodied cups. 

Please refer to Living Tea’s blog and Instagram page where you can find extensive additional writing on the Wood element. You might also be interested in our monthly Puerh club, which shares one seasonally-appropriate, curated Puerh each month. Finally, we’ve designed a Ritual Kit, which has a beautiful Zisha clay side-handle pot and two bowls, specially designed for personal practice. Thank you so much for sharing this beautiful practice and way of life with us.