Woodcutter

We call this tea “Woodcutter” to celebrate the old Daoist stories where students seeking a teacher in the mountains ask a simple woodcutter for directions to the master’s hermitage only to later find out the woodcutter was the master. These stories offer many lessons, one of which is to honor the simple, the ordinary, as it is often a treasure. Traditionally, the stems and bits of leaf left over from tea processing are what farmers and their families drink themselves. They sell the highest quality tea and drink what’s left. These stems were often offered as “gong cha,” which is a large pot of tea and bowls left by the roadside for passersby. That people would take the time to walk and clean a pot, changing the tea a few times a week for travelers they themselves would never meet is a wonderful expression of tea spirit. And it was often simple tea just like this. The stems of tea have also been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for centuries, especially for the throat and upper re