When you ask me how it all started I can only answer that it was nothing short of a mystery.
But I do remember one occasion when I suddenly had a bag of loose leafs of Jin Xuan Tea (金萱) at home. I don’t know where it came from but it was there and it was the real deal and it was amazing to drink. That was perhaps five years ago and if one would pry inside of a typical Swedish tea drawer at that time then one would probably find a couple of bags of the standard Twinings or Liptons (like Earl Grey or something like that) and one would find a couple of herb infusions from Yogi Tea, Friggs or Pukka. My own tea cabinet was nothing unique compared to that. But then this new guy came.
Something inside of me understood that this new guy was not to be thrown inside of boiling water and then be forgotten about like those other teas. No, this guy asked for special attention, and intuitively, without having any knowledge whatsoever, I realized that temperature and timing was key. With that key and without reference from anywhere else, I began walking on the path of the art of brewing really good tea.
But this is just one memory and I can’t honestly say that I know where this thread of tea starts. There are earlier memories there. It seems that this thread is woven very deeply into this body.
A thread of tea, a mystery.