Chen Weiqiao, a post-90s tea man,
Studied under Li Shuyun and has been learning tea for 13 years.
He is called "the most beautiful tea man in Taiwan, China" by the tea circle.
She has a hearty and talkative personality,
I like to drink tea, and I also like to jump.
She doesn't like to wear traditional tea man clothes,
I don't want to learn from the "old man" to drink tea,
Let the tea ceremony match your own outfit and aesthetics,
The tea banquet is contemporary, simple, not conformist, not ancient.
Coral, weeds, Yayoi Kusama's pumpkin sculpture, puppy sculpture,
Wonderfully blended in her tea ceremony.
She also ran all over the tea mountains on both sides of the strait,
For many years, I have been drinking tea with tea people, collectors, and tea merchants on both sides of the strait.
Gradually form a set of their own understanding of tea culture.
A visit to the tea space she hosts, Yinzhuzhai and CHIAOtea,
The former is restrained and heavy, while the latter is relaxed and everyday.
She said, "You don't have to learn other people's tastes when drinking tea.
The most important thing is to please yourself. ”
Statement: Chen Weiqiao
Editor: Chen Qin
When I was a child, I had no interest in drinking tea, I remember that every time my grandfather finished eating, he would take out a pot and 6 very small cups, stuff the tea leaves in the pot, and brew them as black as Pu'er tea.
When I was about to graduate from college, I stumbled into one of my teacher's tea parties, and I just wanted to learn some talents, so I entered the door of tea drinking.
It was very hot in the summer, so I put on a pair of short shorts and wiped my nail polish to go to the first tea class, and when my senior sister saw me from a distance, she ran over in horror and said, "Did you bring a scarf to cover your legs?" How can you wipe nail polish after making tea? ”
I still wondered in my heart, and wanted to say, "Why are there so many rules for learning tea?" I went to ask the teacher, and I remember the teacher frowning and saying to me, "Then you want to match your tea party."
So as soon as I started learning tea, I knew that you don't have to learn from the old people to drink tea, in fact, there are not so many norms, and the most important thing is to put on your own tea banquet style.
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Chen Wei's new-style Christmas tea party, undersea tea party, and Hangzhou curatorial tea party
In the early days, tea drinking was very closed, I just started to learn tea, most of my classmates around me are very old, young people have no concept of drinking tea, most of them drink hand-cranked tea, and they don't buy tea sets at all.
I remember once having tea with a friend, and I said, "I'll make charcoal to make tea for you." As soon as she came in and saw me making charcoal, she said in horror, "Don't ask me to burn charcoal and kill yourself!" ”
I used to be very fun-loving, I went to a nightclub at night, and not long after 12 o'clock I told my friend, "I'm going home, I'm going to have tea tomorrow", and my friend was super angry and scolded me. Later, I found out that she thought I was going to the hotel for afternoon tea. It is conceivable that everyone is still very unfamiliar with things like drinking tea and tea parties.
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Chen Weiqiao makes cold brew tea in the new space CHIAOtea
The culture we are talking about when we drink tea is not blindly antique for me, but more in line with contemporary aesthetics, which is more integrated with my life.
This little apartment was bought for me by my grandmother the year I was born, and it was my first gift. I like the French style, the furniture chose some ancient European cabinets, the paint on the walls has a little metallic color, the lamps are actually made by the lantern master, and the designer then sent to Netherlands to assemble the parts inside, which looks modern and has a little traditional elements.
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Chen Weiqiao explains the tea ceremony at CHIAOtea
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Small utensils on the tea table
When I set up a tea party at CHIAOtea, I will use things in my daily life, such as diving and picking up a coral, and it becomes my incense stick; When I was in a market in Japan, I saw a potter making things that looked like shells, and I used them as my tea. When I went to the European flea market before, I saw a sculpture that looked like my puppy QQ, which I used to make the decoration of the tea ceremony; I love Kusama, and when I saw an exhibition at an art museum, I incorporated the pumpkin sculptures I bought into my tea ceremony.
Coral, sand, weeds, stones, I like to take elements from my daily life to create my tea ceremony. I set the tea table, I never have to compare with others, the most important thing is to find myself.
More than ten years ago, my family founded the tea space Yinzhuzhai. After graduating from university, I worked with my family to promote tea culture. The Hokkien dialect of bamboo is called "Ding", which is the same as the virtue of virtue. The implication of Yinzhuzhai is that we drink tea for self-cultivation, compared to the mentality that everyone likes to perform now, and return to learn inward.
This is a handmade tea room, all the doors, including the sliding doors of the windows, are all made of bamboo one by one to plan, grind, roast, remove insects, and then nail them one by one. A series of moving bamboo doors cover the entire space on all sides, and when you open the bamboo doors, you can see the continuous mountains from afar, although in the urban area, there is still a feeling of being in nature.
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Hidden Bamboo Zhai
When we come into contact with tea, we have to learn more from nature, if a space is very artificial, and unnatural, then people will not relax in this space.
Environmental protection is also a very important spirit of Yinzhuzhai, such as tables and chairs are made of old wood spliced from the old house. In one corner of the tea room, a volcanic stone is placed as a large stone flower vessel. The wall in the middle of the tea room was originally a problem, but there happened to be a long strip of photography embedded in it, which matched the view through the window. We also made a tatami tea room where you have to bend down to get in, reminding us to be humble.
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Chen Weiqiao's flower arrangement work in Yinzhuzhai
I have been studying tea for more than ten years, and I have slowly realized that the tea ceremony is actually an extension of the individual. Because I was not suitable for wearing traditional tea man clothes, such as Chinese-style cheongsam or loose cloth clothes, I began to adjust my tea ceremony to match my usual dressing style.
The tea ceremony is like dressing, you pick out tea towels and tea sets, and you want to use them comfortably and suitably. I think the teapot is very much like a girl's bag, and the material is the most important thing. At my tea ceremony, a teapot, a gaiwan, or a cup, I would expect it to present the best tea soup, so it is mainly plain. The tea warehouse or tea is not a device for making tea directly, and it will make a lot of changes in life.
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Chen Weiqiao makes tea in Yinzhu Zhai
At the beginning of learning tea, everyone was playing with old utensils, and I also liked old pots, such as this pear-shaped pot, which was matched with a set of twelve flower god cups, and now there are only five left, and I chose a cup holder with sunflower petals to match. After brewing four or five teas, the taste will be relatively light, I will put it in my small gold pot to continue boiling, and the silver kettle for boiling water also has a lot of craftsmanship on it, with hammer patterns and small gold nails that I like very much.
When serving tea, I really like one of our teachers' opinions, when you hold a teacup or teacup, it's light, but you have to feel a little heavy; When lifting the kettle, it is very heavy, but it is very light to lift, the so-called lifting weights if light, lifting light if heavy, this alone has been practiced for a long time.
For more than 10 years, I have been making tea in Yinzhuzhai, and I have friends who come to drink tea with me and will quietly ask me, "Can I speak loudly here?" "Everyone seems to think that there is a solemn atmosphere in Yinzhuzhai, and there is no way to relax, so I created a new tea space.
In my opinion, Yinzhuzhai is the starting point for me to learn tea, and it is a heavy, spiritually oriented space, and CHIAOtea is more of a return to daily life.
I liked to drink black tea at first, because black tea is easy to brew and not easy to bitter. After learning tea for a while, you may drink too much tea, and with the relationship of vegetarianism, your body is relatively cold. Later, I fell in love with drinking Wuyi rock tea, frozen top oolong, carbon roasted Tieguanyin, after different varieties plus carbon roasting, the aroma and body feeling of fusion are very charming, and the body is relatively warm and comfortable to drink.
Now that I have found my own suitable tea, I know how to drink tea in moderation, and after conditioning my body, I also like to drink a little Yiwu fragrant and soft Shengpu recently.
Because of drinking tea, I like to go to the tea mountains and deal with tea farmers for a while. I have been to Alishan, Fushou Mountain, Miaosu, Hsinchu (Oriental Beauty), Taitung (Red Oolong), and the mainland has been to Wuyi Mountain, Chaoshan, Hangzhou, Yunnan and so on.
I found that Taiwan tea is mainly oolong, more drinking is technology, such as its degree of fermentation, the same tea garden, light fermentation is green tea, full fermentation is black tea, medium fermentation is oolong tea, sun-dried is white tea. Then there is the characteristics of altitude and microclimate, the soup at high altitude is very delicate, the sweetness will be relatively high, and the aroma of tea at lower altitude will be more and more abundant, and there is more room for change in the process.
The mainland pays more attention to the mountain area and varieties and the corresponding technology, and Hangzhou Longjing is green tea, which will not be made into black tea. The phoenix single fir should have the special aroma of the phoenix single fir. After discovering this phenomenon, I was no longer entangled and formed a set of ways to drink cross-strait tea suitable for myself.
I think my strength is to be able to stand in the position of not being a tea drinker, help people who want to drink tea to get started, drink tea more life-likely, and have a little more beauty, ritual, temperature and taste.
Drinking tea should have a very self-appreciative ability, you like to drink the most important, very cheap tea for dozens of dollars, even it is a tea bag, you don't need to find a teacher to prove whether it is good or not. It's not that I've drunk millions of cakes of tea, but I've bought a famous pot, and I'm very good. Don't buy a tea that is a heavy burden on you, tea still has to be brewed every day after all, just like friends, you have to meet from time to time.
Drinking tea is to please yourself, and the tea I brewed in the early days was often said by an old tea man, "You brew too lightly". I said, "I just don't want to make bitter tea soup, life is already very bitter, and it just wants to be sweet and fragrant." ”
I think drinking tea has made me understand different human natures, and if you drink tea with this person, you will learn about his personality through what he says. I often tell my friends that tea is a good way to have a good chat. When I had tea with me, I had to put away my phone, and everyone naturally began to communicate; Drinking is to make friends, and it is okay to call brothers and sisters when drunk; Drinking coffee is a pick-me-up, and everyone sits down and talks about business.
I used to be a very neutral personality, I was like a little boy when I was a child, and my personality was quite talkative, so it was easy to make friends, and I didn't think about what it meant to be "quiet". I was also very busy before, with a lot of activities and invitations from friends, and my energy was always being consumed. As we get older, our hearts become more and more precipitated. I think that drinking tea is to make my life no longer empty, focus on the one thing in front of me, and get rid of distracting thoughts.
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Set up a tea table during your trip
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Chen Weiqiao during travel
From the very beginning of my study of tea to now, after so many years, there are finally young people's teahouses, this year everyone is very particular about beauty and atmosphere, everyone gradually found that drinking tea can also be beautiful. We have also held Christmas tea parties, undersea tea parties, and picnic tea parties before, and more and more young people are interested in tea culture.
90% of my life is tea, and I also enjoy diving, playing tennis, and basking in the sun. Other than that, my biggest hobby is traveling. I always bring a set of tea sets with me wherever I go, and every time I arrive at the hotel, I first move out a table and put my tea set away.
The moment the tea set is laid out, it feels like I am back in my own home. I think that no matter how small the tea ceremony is, it can give people a very stable power.