Oolong brews more than a cuppa

Published May 6, 2016

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Durban - When Josh Xiao saw the ancient Chinese art of Cha Baixi for the first time it was akin to discovering a rare diamond but having no one with whom to share the sheer joy of the discovery.

Cha Baixi, translated from Mandarin, means tea (Cha) hundreds (Bai) tricks (Xi).

It is a transient art, an image is made using a bamboo scoop adding water to draw in a liquid made of a carefully measured mixture of Oolong tea powder and water on a lacquer plate. The image, which could be a Chinese character, a scene or a portrait, lasts just a few hours before it fades and the plate is washed.

Preparing the tea powder is a careful process which can only be done by those specially trained. Like everything about tea in China, the ritual is slow and calm; a thread that links the modern world with ancient times.

Despite Xiao’s solitary delight on the day he saw Cha Baixi, he was not alone. The 28-year-old, who is based at the Confucius Institute at Durban University of Technology, was leading a summer camp of 20 Durban students and three Kearsney College pupils to China in June last year. The group was at the sacred Wuyi Mountain, in the south-east, for a tea demonstration when they were shown the technique that overwhelmed him.

“I had heard about Cha Baixi in 2011 when I was studying for my MA in tea at the Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (in Fujian). It had been rediscovered in 2008, but news of the discovery was only made public in 2009.”

Even one of China’s tea “Titans”, the 107-year-old expert, Zhang Tianfu, had never seen it done, Zhang Zhifeng, who rediscovered “Cha Baixi”, told Xiao later.

“Here I was, with a bunch of students from Durban, watching something I had only dreamed about. I couldn’t exactly start hugging them and jumping up and down, they would have thought I was crazy,” he laughs.

Cha Baixi had disappeared during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) when the Emperor ruled that the solid tea powder cake the populace used for tea drinking and painting was too labour-intensive to make. The emperor banned the process and ordered that only loose tea leaves could be used, a decision that has impacted through the centuries and shaped the modern taste for tea, albeit now loose tea contained in a bag.

After the Durban students were on a plane back to South Africa, Xiao returned to Wuyi Mountain for a month, to study the process which the Chinese also call “Fang Song Dian Cha”. He knew that the art was exceptional and little known. Despite extensive searching he had found nothing on the internet and its rediscovery appeared only to be known in academic circles.

“There was very little about it that had been written down,” he said.

“It really is a way of quietening yourself. During the Song Dynasty (960-1279) everyone used it to pass the time, to entertain, and to cultivate the mind, from the emperor to small children.”

Xiao is now back in Durban and continues to teach at the institute but practises Fang Song Dian Cha and Cha Baixi at least twice a week.

The process takes about three hours to prepare and to paint. He has no desire to study it for academic purposes but practises it purely as a greatly loved folk art.

It is this passion for Chinese culture and his exceptional knowledge of tea that led him to South Africa where he is encouraged, through the institute, to share knowledge of his culture with local people. Inevitably, a large part of this involves tea and the ancient rituals that accompany making it and drinking it.

For Xiao, Durban is as foreign as many parts of China are for people here.

He was born and raised in Tanhua village, Pingxiang City, in Jiangxi Province, in eastern China where his parents are traders.

He studied tea science because he hopes one day to open a tea experience centre and because knowledge of tea is highly regarded in China - and well paid.

Next year, he hopes to remain in South Africa to begin his doctorate at Stellenbosch University where he will look at how Rooibos tea and Chinese tea can work together to combat diabetes.

“I love Rooibos. Everyone here at the Confucius Institute drinks it out of a mug.”

His love of Cha Baixi will endure though, whatever his future holds.

“This knowledge is a gift. It’s my responsibility to know it and what it means and to keep it alive.”

Sunday Tribune

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