Via Tiempo's labels are full of information about your tea. The essentials are easy to understand at a glance. There are some symbols that need decoding. Certain symbols have worlds within worlds, offering an invitation to deepen your connection to tea. The map isn't the terrain, but a good map is a great starting point.

Top Line

Name

First we have the name of the tea, with the origin written underneath. Most of the time, the name I use is a direct translation of the Chinese name. Pure Heart Orchid is a translation of Su Xin Lan. I don't translate Alishan and Lapsang as those are well-known tea names.

Origin

Each origin note (just below the name) in the above labels gives a place that is famous for the type of tea. You can look them up if you like. Tongmu pass, for example, is the original home of red tea.

Seasons

On the Chinese Calendar, spring begins in February, Summer in May, Autumn in August, and Winter in November. That makes the Solstices and Equinoxes the mid-points of each season. The trigrams above, the combinations of three lines, may be familiar to you from the I Ching. Here, they represent the experiential eight season Daoist calendar. In Zhen you have thunderstorms and rain for crops. In Li the most notable change is the climate is that of warming and brightening. In Dui the lake begins to warm and you might decide to jump in to refresh yourself. In Qian the sky becomes vast as the days seem never to end. In Xun the first feelings of autumn are felt on the cool wind. In Kan you find the water is cooling significantly as the days shorten. In Gen, the mountains become visible as leaves vanish, and there is a feeling of stillness. In Kun, everything returns to the earth, animals burrowing underground. 

Matching Tea to Season

Time of Year

Teas naturally match these seasons. You might find that a rock tea is untouchable in June and irresistible in January. On the other hand, an Autumn tea might be perfect in spring, on a day when you are feeling reflective. 

Evocative Seasons

Seasons are evoked in a rain shower, an unexpected aroma, a song we hear, a memory, a shift in light. When you get a feel for the seasons, you'll find them evoked by weather, circumstances, and of course the time of the day.

Seasons of the Day

A winter tea in the early morning, a spring tea as the sun continues its morning ascent, summer teas in midday, and autumn teas in the afternoon—these are all very fitting. When the time of day and year align, it's doubly magical.

Endless Poetry

You can use your tea to play with your inner and outer seasons, finding support, harmony, or being creative, playful, and curious. Have fun!

Middle

Gongfu Cha

Gongfu Cha is the Chinese way of preparing tea with a small teapot and multiple steeps. The imagery of a curved line from easy stroll, to gentle rolling hills, to steep slopes depicts a challenge level—or better yet, a reward level. Certain teas reward you for slowing down and being attentive with them. The level can be seen as a combination of three factors: does this tea require precision? does this tea challenge the drinker? will skill provide higher peaks of enjoyment?

Temperature

Personally, I prepare most of my teas ish 208º water, with green tea being the exception. For some teas I give a range like 195-208º, because to a large extent it is up to each person's preference.

Guidance

I give just enough guidance to orient you to the tea at hand. Short steeps for tannic teas, long steeps to draw out sweetness, long first steep for rolled oolongs, short first steep for Rock Teas, and some teas are just "easy steepers." For those, you can stick to your usual intuitive steeping.

Tea Type and Color

A tea's type is linked to it's color. 

Following the colors from left to right, white and green teas are the least processed. They are on the left. Some oolongs are just lightly oxidized, like Alishan. They get the dark green hue. A High Mountain Oolong that is oxidized more deeply, like our Sea of Clouds is to the blue in the middle. Moving to the right half of the chart, the next two are orange and brown. They indicate roasted oolongs. Orange, like Phoenix oolongs, are lightly roasted. Brown are heavily roasted, like the Rock Tea form Wuyi in the example above. Red tea, what many outside of China call "black tea," is fully oxidized (and not roasted). The leaves are allowed to turn from green to red before the decomposition is stopped. On the far right is aged tea called hei cha or black tea in China, Liu Bao and Peurh for example. 

Below the colors, the type of tea is written. It can say "green tea," or a more elaborate categorization like "all-bud Red Tea from 100 year trees."

Look For

What should you look for in this tea? This highlights something special about the tea. It gives you a hint as to what I loved about this tea, and why I'm sharing it. It is the wow, the excitement, or the mark of good craft in this style of tea. 

You might need to look for a well known attribute of the style of tea—for example rock charm, yanyun, the prized minerality and lingering sweetness of Rock Tea. Or you might look for the stand-out trait that sets this tea apart from others of the same name—like the creamy texture of good Alishan. Fragrant wood aroma—in the example above, is an unexpected and delightful aspect of the 2024 Meizhan, a light roasted Rock Tea.

Medicine, Contemplative, Familiar Friend

Via Tiempo teas generally fall into three categories. Each of these is a term of endearment, that speaks to the relationship this tea invites. 

The rocking chair in the blue segment represents the familiar friend. These easy-going teas tend to be comforting like Honey Jinjunmei, subtle and down to earth like Old Tree Shuixian, or straight forward and predictable like Clouds and Mist. Not fussy or flashy, it's the kind of tea that you can rely on.

The incense burner in the green segment symbolizes a contemplation tea. These teas slow you down. They have a lot of change in flavor from steep to steep, and even movement on the palate. Their layers of nuance, unexpected turns, and movement through time reflect and induce a contemplative atmosphere.  

The gourd in the red segment signifies a medicine tea. Medicine teas are thus named for the effect they have, not healing sickness, but offering a special level of nourishment or shift in mood or outlook. Some are Old Tree teas grown in pristine environments like Old Tree Lapsang. Some have high levels of L-theanine, the relaxing amino acid more abundant in cold weather green (and green oolong) teas full of chlorophyl.

Energy, etc.

In the central column is the energy. How does this tea make you feel? This is less about emotion, and more about the movement of energy in the body—though they can be connected. We to find a translation or imagery for the feeling bestowed by the tea and it's effect on Jing, Qi, and Shen. Sometimes the tea has an obvious feel, others are more subtle. The energy is meant to give a sense of the tea in relatable everyday language, but of course each tea can affect each person differently. 

Below that is if the tea is warming or cooling. Yes, hot tea can have a cooling effect on the body. Some teas don't say either, because they are neutral or close to it. This area also includes notes like charcoal roasting and elevation in some cases. It's a catch all zone.

Simple Brew

These are very generic instructions for how to make tea in a big pot, or with a tea bag, or however people who are not into Gongfu Cha make tea. Having these instructions gives people a handhold, but I'll tell you a secret here. My preferred method for when I make simple tea is to put tea directly in the bottom of a cup, glass, or bottle, and fill it with water. No need to decant at all. Actually green tea is often made this way in a tall glass. For other teas, loose in a cup is called Grandpa Style. In a glass to-go bottle, I call immortal style (because it steeps a long time—and you can carry it with you to the immortal realms). if you aren't feeling like making Gong Fu Cha, give them a try!

Lastly

Aroma, Flavor, Character

The notes capture a single session with the tea and are not by any means definitive. Your experience may be vastly different and we welcome that!

Aroma is the smell of the dry leaves, wet leaves, and tea broth. The flavors are the flavors of course, with a little more weight on the early steeps.

Notes are listed from left to right in order of prominence. Obviously the tea doesn't actually taste like putting these ingredients together in a blender. You can think of it as the sweetness of ___________, the bitter of _______________, the sour of _____________. If a tea has more than 3 notes, it is unusually complex. 

Sharing tasting notes is one avenue of connection. It's a "western" way of thinking about tea, because it is influenced by wine and coffee culture. Often when I enjoy tea with friends, we don't discuss notes like this at all. Think of them as fun, optional, and expansive (not stodgy, snobbish, and fixed).

If want make your own notes, see if you can do it a settling way. Let it be a slow mindful practice of returning to the aroma and flavor again and again. Then see what it evokes or reminds you of.