Expat consumes life in Chinese tea(2)

Photo provided to China Daily

In 2006, Peltier finally arrived in Fujian province, an area known for its tea culture.

He worked in Longyan city as an English teacher, and was thrilled when he discovered a tea shop on almost every street corner.

"I dropped by a shop to sit and drink, and the tea they sold turned out to be Tieguanyin, which is floral and fresh," Peltier says.

"Later I bought a tea set in my house and made brewing, drinking and researching my daily routine," Peltier says.

A year later, Peltier moved to Fu-zhou, the provincial capital, with his wife, a Fuzhou native whom he met in Longyan.

Still working as an English teacher, Peltier continued to research tea in Fuzhou and was pleased to discover the city's trademark export, jasmine tea.

After a lot of research and gathering about 50 ancient tea monographs, Peltier began writing his own tea book in 2008.

His plan was to sort through his gathered material and combine it into a book centered on the technique and taste of tea practiced in ancient China.

During the editing process, he was struck by some interesting information. He was particularly taken with a technique in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) called "parting tea" in which tea brewers whisked the tea to create amazing images such as flowers and birds in the foam on the top of the broth.

Despite his passion for the subject, Peltier says reading ancient Chinese was difficult.

"The archaic Chinese is obscure and difficult and I had nobody to consult with," Peltier says.

"Once I asked my wife for help and she was like 'What the hell does this mean? It is ancient Chinese'," he recalls.

Peltier had to look up almost every term in an online dictionary of ancient Chinese. To maintain the accuracy as much as possible, he also repeatedly checked various documents and online archives.

Spending 12 hours a day writing, Peltier single-handedly completed the 160-page work, The Ancient Art of Tea, in 2011. It was published the same year.

He soon became something of a mini celebrity on the Fuzhou tea circuit, and became a regular guest at the province's high-end events related to tea.

In 2012, a tea company in Fuzhou selected Peltier as the image ambassador for its black tea product aimed at the international market and the Fuzhou Agriculture Bureau hired him as a consultant.

Peltier says his Chinese dream is all about tea, a dream from which he is yet to wake. His next project is a book about the philosophy of tea.

"I want to share with others my understanding of tea, of harmony and the respect for nature," Peltier says.