article on tea emoji and the history of tea for Smithsonian Magazine

everything I’ve wanted to say and have been thinking for the last 10 years about regarding tea, its colonial history, and the legacy of that still today for Whetstone Magazine’s Online Journal.

A Mini (as in broadstroke highlights) tea history in ancient China before the year 1368 AD.

Examining a classical Chinese painting about Qing Ming and thinking about tea ancestors.

A quick glimpse at the tea trading history of Xiamen aka Amoy.

Exploring the Ancient Tea Horse Road, an 1000 year old trading route, we will illuminate the exciting adventure and travel elements of Pu'er tea’s long history.

Why Qimen is also known as Keemun, how it ended up being a black tea made in a region mostly known for green teas, and how it became a global superstar of black teas.

Learn the relationship between the spring tea harvest and one of China’s ancient holidays to honor ancestors and the dead.

Read about the little known story of how a tea industry and style of making tea represents a history of displacement in Mae Salong, Thailand since 1948.

Listen to the conversation I had with Evan Kleinman on her public radio show and podcast "Good Food” on KCRW.

Read about small scale tea production on Hawaii’s Big Island and the history of tea growing in Hawaii. With lots of photos.

View a gallery of Sun Jun’s gorgeous tea inspired photos done in his signature classical Chinese painting and modern fashion photo mixed style.

View photos from a tea and mooncakes tasting we co-hosted with our friends Wuhao Curated Shop in their courtyard space in Beijing.

Probing Tang Dynasty Chinese poems that discuss tea, loneliness, melancholy, and comfort plus a Mahler symphony inspired by ancient Chinese poetry.

Watch as I discuss looking to ancient Chinese poems about tea for comfort during times of high anxiety today.

View classic Chinese scroll paintings from as early as the Song Dynasty depicting tea drinking.

Visit Chaozhou to feel the chill vibes of a city where it feels like sipping tea with a bunch of other people could sprout up any moment outside on one of the quiet streets.

View photos from a unique place where you stay amongst tea fields in Moganshan in Zhejiang Province a formerly glamorous getaway for the glitterati of Shanghai in the 1920’s and 30’s.

View photos to glimpse some of the process in designing and crafting a teapot with artisans in Jingdezhen.

The radicals that comprise the character 茶(cha) tell the elegantly simple story of how tea is a natural plant that we can enjoy as tea thanks to the people who help us harvest it.

The three factors that to me, make Chinese tea special and distinctive from other tea cultures.

Listen to me discussing the differences of tea-growing regions and especially how they manifest in Chinese vs. Japanese styles of green tea production on KCRW’s Good Food radio show and podcast.

View a photo gallery to see the differences in Japanese and Chinese tea growing and production styles of green tea.

How the Bodhisattva Guanyin became associated with the Chinese oolong tea: Tieguanyin oolong.