Tea Emperor

After being absent from this blog for over a year, now I am back again, with a little addition — the Tea Prince!

Yes, now we have a little tea baby, who will definitely like to drink tea in the future, like his daddy and mummy.

I have to confess first, that I haven’t been drinking much tea during the past 1.5 years as I have been trying to avoid caffeine intake during the pregnancy and breastfeeding. I know that there are also caffeine-free tea available, but in any case I just kind of leave it all for a while. However, not drinking any common tea doesn’t mean that I have not drank anything that is called or named “tea”. In fact, during this period of time I have been taking especially different kinds of Chinese health “herb tea” which boost my health condition, including the Red Date & Longan tea.

In the coming posts, I will share more on those healthy tea or soup that are easy to make and good for your health.

Stay tuned!

I have been mulling the plan of importing some blooming teas – or flowering teas if you prefer – because they have been in short supply here in Finland. Similarly various tools and pots that can be used to steep tea have been non-existent. It seemed like a good niche to position oneself – make a little webshop and sell to the small but growing market of tea educated Finns.

Forsman Tea finally introduced more variety to their product slate. They now offer blooming teas or flowering teas as well as all kinds of tea steeping related items.

DARK CLOUDS GATHER OVER THE TEA TREE FIELDS
(Please excuse me that long and winding subtitle – I have no idea why I wrote it) Now there is an obstacle on our way to becoming tea entrepreneurs and that obstacle is called Forsman Tea Company.

It is a small tea company in international terms but a HUGE LEVIATHAN OF A COMPANY IN FINLAND. It is bit like Microsoft used to be. They can sniper any budding competition in Finland by introducing specific products with cheap price to match new market entries and developments.

What should we do? Any ideas?

When my husband, the emperor suggested me to write for Tea Emperor, I was initially uncertain about it. I do like tea, always prefer tea to coffee, always willing to try new teas, always enjoy teas, however I am not a tea reviewer, not a tea collector, not a tea expert, never bother to distinguish one tea leaf to another, I wonder thus, can I actually be a contributor to Tea Emperor?

My cup of tea, photo by Empress

Amazingly, just in a few weeks of time my thought has completely changed. Now I start to think that Tea Emperor is exactly a place where I would love to devote my passion and time, why? Because I just recently realised the connection between tea, herbal remedies, Chinese medicine and health during a chain of events (which I wish to share with you more in this blog). As a person who is extremely interested in health-related issues, this “discovery” made me realise that to explore more on tea would be a rewarding journey in my life.

I will start by telling you one of the events that leaded my thoughts on this.

Bach’s flower remedies

During my visit to London last October, I learned about Bach’s flower remedy from a friend. “It is a commonly-used home remedy in UK. You could even find it from supermarket. Dr. Bach’s idea is that everybody should be able to heal themselves by using the natural flower remedies” said my friend. According Dr. Bach who created flower remedies in the beginning of last century, all human diseases come originally from our own emotions. The way to cure diseases is to retain balance of our body. Bach believes that the cure of our emotional imbalance can be found from flowers grown in nature, thus he has tried hundreds and hundreds of flowers grown in England to develop his flower remedy which in the end consists 38 different flowers, 38 basic remedies.

Honestly I haven’t tried the flower remedies yet, but I am highly interested in it and I do believe the idea behind it. I guess this has something to do with my Chinese cultural background.

Chinese herbal remedies (Chinese medicine)

As mentioned in this article, a legendary creator of Chinese medicines has also tried hundreds and hundreds of plants from nature to test their functions regarding human health. According to Chinese medicine theory, all the diseases come from the imbalance of our body system. Disease is not an enemy, instead it is a way through which our body tries to communicate with us and remind us: it’s time to retain balance in our mind and body again.

Both remedies focus on plants and herbs, human body as a system of balance

I noticed that the ancient Chinese herbal remedies (Chinese medicine) and the modern British flowe remedies are not so different from one another from those aspects. The may differ in the plants they use, in the methods they use, in the way they interpret the relations between human body and disease, but in essence they both believe in achieving balance of mind and body is a way to be healthy. Be it flower or Chinese herbs, they are just ways to help us achieve the healthy state.

People in both countries love to drink tea

Interestingly, both British and Chinese are especially active tea drinkers in the world! Tea has also been said as healthy drinks in both countries. As mentioned in this post, Chinese called any water cooked with plants as tea, I think in western world it often goes the same way too, such as rose tea, jasmine tea, berry tea… none of them have to have “tea leaves” in, but they are all tea anyway. They are flower tea, herbal tea, just like Chinese herbal medicine from which you can find flowers and plants. By the way, Chinese also like to put rose and jasmines into different kinds of tea!

Tea, a drink to achieve balance of body and mind?

Could it be so that tea in ancient times, be it in China or in Britain, is considered to be drinks that are cooked with plants/leaves/flowers that can help us to achieve healthy mind and body state? So maybe drinking tea has never been just custom of a nation, but also a way for people to contemplate, to feel calm, to feel balanced, to be healthy? Sure that not everybody drinks tea to be healthy, one can also drink tea for fun and enjoyment. But isn’t it so that the feeling of enjoyment and fulfillment is exactly the sources of a person’s mental health and will also result in a more balanced physical state, no matter you deliberately think about this or not?

At least that’s what I think.

Then I know this blog is really for me too, through which I hope to explore more about tea as tao, tea as way of living, tea and health, and how we as human beings can achieve a healthy mind and body state with the help of all kinds of tea. Those are what I am to share with all of you.

I drink at least 10 big cups of tea every day. To drink this much is not that healthy, but I do it anyway, because I like to drink tea. This blog is about tea.