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The Alchemy of a Teacup: How China’s Five Elements Whisper Through Steam
by Charlotte Yao
“So, this is not merely a tale of learning about tea, but also one of an individual’s quest in China for the Five Elements, that legendary and miraculous energy.–Derek”
Last year, I met Derek, an American who was learning about tea in Wuyi Mountain. He journeyed all the way from Brooklyn to Anup ji in India, then to Chiang Mai in Thailand, and finally came to Wuyi Mountain in China to live and study. He is a senior yoga instructor and singing bowl healing therapist, and now he has become a die – hard enthusiast of Chinese tea.
We hit it off as soon as we met, so naturally, I asked him why he was here. He said that his affinity with Chinese tea actually began in Beijing. After each yoga session or singing bowl therapy, he liked to replenish his energy with various natural beverages. He had explored a wide range of drinks, from herbal, vegetable, and fruit concoctions to tea. “However, my initial fondness was mainly due to my body’s instincts. I was drawn to their natural aroma, pure taste, and the pleasant physical sensations they brought,” he said. “That was until I happened to meet my first tea teacher, Teacher Liu, during my trip to Beijing.”
“I’ve always remembered that scene,” Derek said.
In a tucked-away Beijing *hutong*, Master Liu pours boiling water into a Yixing clay pot, his hands moving with the unhurried precision of a calligrapher. “Tea is not a drink,” he says, eyes crinkling. “It’s a conversation between heaven, earth, and the five elements.” The pot, shaped like a gnarled tree trunk, releases the scent of aged pu-erh—earthy, primal, as if the very soil of Yunnan had folded itself into the leaves. Outside, the 21st century buzzes with delivery scooters and WeChat pings. Inside, time bends to the rhythm of“Wu Xing”（五行）, China’s ancient Five Elements philosophy, where every sip is an act of cosmic diplomacy.
So, this is not merely a tale of learning about tea, but also one of an individual’s quest in China for the Five Elements, that legendary and miraculous energy.
金Metal: The Kettle’s Rebellion
The ritual begins with rebellion. A 19th-century French journalist once quipped that Chinese tea “subdues boiling water with ironclad grace.” He might have been describing Master Liu’s soot-blackened iron kettle, a relic from his grandfather’s teahouse. “Metal tames water’s chaos,” Liu explains, tracing a finger over the kettle’s dragon-shaped spout. The Tang Dynasty’s Tea Saint, Lu Yu, would’ve approved. In his *Classic of Tea* (A.D. 760), he insisted on iron kettles to “give water bones”—a poetic nod to Wu Xing’s “金生水” (“Metal births Water”). Modern science offers a prosaic footnote: iron kettles infuse water with minerals, smoothing its edges.
Yet even Lu Yu might raise an eyebrow at today’s “wellness influencers” hawking $800 Japanese ‘tetsubin’ on Instagram. “The best kettle?” Master Liu chuckles, nodding at his chipped veteran. “One that remembers every fire it’s kissed.”
木Wood: Shennong’s Hangover Cure
The leaves tell older stories. According to myth, China’s first cup of tea was a detox brew for the demigod Shennong, who’d nibbled one too many poisonous herbs. “神农尝百草, 日遇七十二毒, 得荼而解之,” Liu recites—the ancient script’s rhythm as familiar as a nursery rhyme. “Wood element isn’t just about leaves. It’s survival.”
He opens a lacquer box of emerald-green Longjing, its flat leaves pressed like botanical fossils. “Spring tea for liver qi—like Emperor Qianlong prescribed.” The Qing emperor, a tea obsessive, allegedly retired just to focus on sipping (and writing bad poetry about it). His ode to Dragon Well tea: “A sip, and Hangzhou’s West Lake unfurls in the throat.”
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Qianlong’s true madness, though, was water. He dispatched servants with silver斗 (“dǒu”) to measure China’s springs by weight—lighter water meant fewer impurities. Beijing’s Jade Spring won, becoming the imperial “water GPA.” “He was nuts,” Liu admits, “but right. Bad water murders good tea.”
Modern tea geeks have swapped silver斗 for TDS meters, but the quest remains. A Shanghai friend of mine, a venture capitalist turned pu-erh collector, flies to Iceland annually to fill jerrycans with glacial melt. “Volcanic water has fire’s passion and earth’s silence,” he texts me, unironically.
At this, Derek and I burst into laughter. The Dahongpao in the gaiwan before us was made with tap water. But hey, in Wuyi Mountain, every home’s tap gushes with natural spring water from the Nine – Bend Brook. Man, we’re really living it up, aren’t we?
火Fire: Bai Juyi’s Midnight Scrolls
Back in Liu’s studio, charcoal hisses in a brass “huoqiang”stove. “Fire is the liar,” he muses. “It shouts, but its real work is silent.” The Tang poet Bai Juyi understood this. In his ode *After Tea* (A.D. 824), he described brewing as “coaxing the dragon asleep in the leaves”—a metaphor that inspired Song Dynasty tea masters to grade flames by sound. Liu’s fire whispers. As steam curls upward, he quotes a line Derek later Google-translated: “Water boiled over pinewood knows the taste of ancient sunlight.”
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Shop Now →土Earth: The Clay’s Memory
The star of the show is the unglazed Yixing pot, its surface textured like dinosaur skin. “A virgin pot is useless,” Liu says. “It needs years of tea baths to grow a soul.” Ming Dynasty artisans called this “yang hu” (“cultivating the pot”). Each brew seeps minerals into the clay, creating a patina of flavor memories. A well-loved Yixing, they say, can make tap water taste like mountain spring.
It’s also Wu Xing’s ultimate diplomat. “Clay (土) brokers peace between Metal’s kettle, Wood’s leaves, Water’s flow, and Fire’s temper,” Liu says. He rotates the pot, a lunar module landing in a pool of amber tea. “The fifth element? That’s you.”
The sixth Element？
Here lies Wu Xing’s open secret: the elements aren’t five, but six. The missing piece is the drinker—the human who, in holding the cup, becomes both alchemist and crucible. When Song Dynasty poet Su Shi designed his iconic “Dongpo teapot” with a hollow handle (to cool boiling water without diluting tea), he wasn’t just solving physics. He was asserting humanity’s role in the elemental tango.
When Derek was traveling in China, he was quite surprised to find that many cities were full of praise and commemoration related to Su Shi. After learning more, he came to admire this ancient Chinese friend. He regarded Su Shi as an exemplary figure who achieved inner balance.
Even the Zen masters agreed. The phrase “吃茶去” (*chá qù*)—“go drink tea”—was 9th-century monk Zhao Zhou’s answer to all existential queries. His point? Enlightenment isn’t in sutras, but in the act of balancing Metal’s discipline, Wood’s wildness, Water’s surrender, Fire’s fervor, and Earth’s patience.
A Teacup in Brooklyn
Weeks later, in Derek’s Brooklyn kitchen, he attempted Wu Xing with an IKEA kettle and Trader Joe’s oolong. The result tastes like regret. But then I remember Liu’s parting words: “The elements don’t judge. They wait.” So, I returned to China and came to Wuyi Mountain. Because I finally realized that my life goal is to strive for self – balance and even help others find this kind of balance.Because in a world of algorithmic chaos and artificial intelligence, there’s radical hope in believing that five ancient forces, and a pot of truly hot teat, might still brew balance.
“What about Master Liu? Is he still in Beijing?” I was full of curiosity about this senior.
As for Master Liu? He’s now on Douyin (China’s TikTok), demonstrating “Wu Xing Tea art.” Some traditions evolve. Others just find new kettles to whisper through.
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