Written by Gawin Tiansuwan (กวิน เทียนสุวรรณ)
Image credit: An evening with friends in Brighton, UK, 2014. Photo provided by the author.
I never could have imagined that tea would become something as central in my life as it is. I tell people that I love tea, while the meaning of tea has become something that transcends many boundaries and definitions. It is far beyond a beverage, and yet it is so many things that I have difficulty putting into words what it is, and so I say that it is Everything. Following tea changed the way I travel and how I learn about the world, the people, and the community I connect with. In a way, tea provided the much-needed comfort zone and a form of stability in a life where I had constantly been on the move.
When I’m asked, “How long have you been into tea?” I would usually respond, “for about eight years…” which marks the time when I started drinking tea the ”eastern” way. However, a recent realisation of mine is that tea had actually been part of my identity since a young age. My Facebook profile at one point had been changed to “Gawin Heart Tea,” and I was known at house parties to be the “sober guy” who’s “always drinking tea.”
Certainly, tea was not my only interest at the time; I was addicted to video games, loved playing music and singing, and, most important of all, I loved being surrounded by good friends. Tea had facilitated that, because on a cold day (which was most days), nothing was better than sharing a big pot of tea with friends. We brewed pot upon pot and had an endless supply of the Western-style, scented tea blends. It would be Earl Grey, Forest Berries, Eve of Spring, or whatever creative name the tea blender had come up with. Tea was often paired with snacks and soft music, and my choice was often jazz, although my friends thought it was a bit old-fashioned. These moments of “tea-time” carried on from high school to university, and I recall all the late nights with my dorm mates drinking tea together in the common room or sometimes just on the floor in the hallway. Tea was always able to gather people and create a presence that helped us connect. I still feel the same sense of belonging even now, although my brewing method has changed fundamentally.
About 9 years ago, I decided to move back to Thailand after an impossible period trying to find work in Sweden. At the time, my interests were in human rights and international development, and I knew that Bangkok was the Southeast Asian hub for the NGO sector. I managed to land a position with a children’s rights organisation as a project coordinator. Fieldwork was a crucial part, involving immersion in Northern Thai culture and lands I had not had much opportunity to explore previously.
A rice field with mountains in the background, Phayao, 2018. Photo by the author.
Working within the development sector helped me realise that I’m a very passion-driven person. I knew I had found the right values-based way of living. But walking on that path, I frankly burnt out. However, it was also during this period that I “rediscovered” tea — the non-scented, pure-leaf way of drinking through the gongfu tea method (功夫茶). I say rediscovered because by that point, I had already been drinking tea for many years, but it had not come to me until then, at least not in that iteration.
It was during my first trip to Hong Kong that I went to a “proper” tea house. I was catching up with my friends at a café in Tsim Tsa Shui when we felt rushed and looked for a calmer environment. I do not remember exactly how I came up with the idea of going to a tea house – it somehow just came to me. As with most locations in Hong Kong, it was unassuming and mysteriously located in a residential building on the fourteenth floor, but once you stepped in, it felt like a different world. It was beautifully decorated with wooden tables, bonsai plants, and plenty of teaware scattered all over the space. I was simply in awe. The experience there taught me about the importance of space, care, and the teas that are chosen. I remember that my reaction after the service was: ‘I needed this in my life.’ Right after Hong Kong, I was bound for a short flight to Hualien, Taiwan. Tea was not on my mind when I was planning for Taiwan – I was going wherever was popular with Thai tourists: Hualien, Jiufen, and Taipei. But that single experience in Hong Kong had already opened my eyes. I remember being extremely impressed by the Artist’s Teahouse in Jiufen with its view over the ocean; that teahouse remains one of my favourite teahouses to visit. I left Taiwan with my first-ever Yixing clay teapot and a handful of tea. My life would change forever.
Picture of the Phoenix Teahouse, now permanently closed, December 2017. Photo by the author.
In a way, tea helped me reconnect with myself and my roots. While growing up in Sweden, I felt at times detached from my Thai heritage, especially as I lived in the countryside and, frankly, did not meet many other Asians. I was hesitant to embrace it, afraid of being ridiculed. The tea life that I have now, in a way, is being unapologetic about my own identity. Although I do have Chinese heritage, as my great-grandparents on my mom’s side migrated from Chaozhou, I never really spent much time with that side of the family, but people would tell me that “blood is strong,” and so the tea heritage found its way to me anyway.
Now, I cannot say whether I believe in the power of blood, but it was rather evident that the presence of ‘gongfu cha’ in Bangkok was predominantly among those of Hokkien/Fujianese and Chaozhou/Teochew heritage. Indeed, all of the shops that I went to were, not surprisingly, owned by families of Hokkien or Teochew origins, and most of their offerings would be oolong tea, either from Fujian or Chaozhou. For the longest time, I thought that most Chinese tea was oolong tea until I learned that it was simply over-represented in the context of Bangkok’s Chinatown. Nevertheless, visiting the tea shopkeepers in Bangkok was how I learned more and explored more, and I have them to thank for introducing me to fantastic teas that, without a doubt, set high standards and trained my taste buds.
One of my favourite teas that I kept purchasing over the years is the Red Rose (紅玫瑰) cultivar “rock oolong” from the Three Shells shop on Rama IV Street, which is one of the oldest tea shops in Chinatown. I gradually became acquainted with other regulars and realised that there was, in fact, a tea community, but it was not so visible because of the lack of proper venues (i.e. teahouses), and people would rather gather in their own homes. Drinking tea had then become an entry point into a piece of history and a culture that I had not connected with before.
Spending time at Three Shells shop with the owner, 2018. Photo provided by the author.
Gawin is a multi-cultural tea practitioner who was born in Thailand, grew up in Sweden, studied tea-making in Taiwan, and is now based in Thailand as a producer of Thai wild tea under the name Miang Craft (IG: miang.craft).
This article was published as part of the special issue on ‘Taiwan Tea Cultures and Relational Routes‘.