We have heard of a tradition in China that, when a daughter is born, the family purchases the finest PuErh that they can afford and stores it in waiting for her wedding. The tea ages along with the girl and becomes richer and more complex just like the person. Eventually, the prized collection becomes a dowry of sorts and an opportunity to taste and celebrate at the wedding. We are not sure how wildly practised this tradition is but we liked the overall idea - with a few tweaks!
When we found out that we were expecting our first child in early 2019 we thought that it would be wonderful to source a Sheng PuErh tea from the year of her birth and make it 'her' tea to taste through her life. As she grows the tea will develop and we hope that it will be her companion through all of life's majesty - the struggles, the quiet beauty and the celebrations.
We began sourcing in Spring 2019, trying to find PuErh which was sprouting as she grew in the womb and wanted to blend this tea with pickings from the month of her birth in October 2019. After many tastings, we found a combination that we felt was fitting - sweet and aromatic in its youth but with plenty of depth and minerality to provide the backbone for developing into a strong and complex tea.
This 357g 'Aiyana' cake is a blend of March 2019 Ba Da and October 2019 Bing Dao mountains. They are both from Gushu trees estimated at around 300 years of age.
We have only pressed 200 cakes and we are keeping many for our family. We have some cakes available for those who want to share in this special moment with us with a very special celebratory tea for our daughter Aiyana.
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THE WRAPPER:
The artwork illustrated by Celine represents a lot to us. We wanted a cake that showed both the quiet and the abundance of life, expressing the stillness of dark night and the awe-inspiring light and expanse of the universe. The idea of the continuous Yin-Yang nature of existence. We wanted the wrapper to feel magical, glowing and unique as an expression of our feelings for this new life.
Celine is named after the Goddess of the moon and she is the peaceful guardian, bright in the sky as a guide and source of light for our girl. My name in Chinese roughly translates as 'pillar of truth' and so the reflection of the moon in the water is designed to look like a pillar holding up the horizon to give our girl resilience, stability and strength. As parents, we are there in the background, omnipresent for Aiyana, whenever she needs us.
Aiyana is either a Native American name meaning 'Eternal Flower' or of Somali origin meaning 'a beautiful flower'. Our daughter's second name is Kalia. I personally chose 'Kalia' because of its phonetic similarity to 'Qualia' - the philosophical name for subjective conscious experience that cannot easily be explained away by materialism. Apparently, this name is used in Hawai‘i and depending on the website is listed to have meanings similar to 'filled with joy' and 'clear and bright' and 'flower child' (any Hawaiian speaking teaheads out there?). EDIT: a very generous teahead, passionate in Hawaiian culture has written saying that these meanings cannot be verified by reliable sources but that Kali‘a could be translated to mean something like 'the contemplation'.
Either way, we wanted our daughter to be represented by an abundance of wild, mountain flowers, forever blossoming (even through the night). They glow, seemingly luminescent because they are not just passively witnessing the brilliance of the starry sky but they are part of its majesty. The pollen rising to become indistinguishable from the stars, defying concepts of distance and separation - all consciousness is one and we are are all connected beyond space.
