Every time I passed by the Merlion Park and looked up at the world-famous statue of the Merlion spouting water, something always felt amiss.
One day, while idly watching the flow of passersby at an Orchard Road MRT station entrance, it struck me like a bolt of lightning: the Merlion statue has a stern expression without a hint of a smile. Just like the endless stream of pedestrians before my eyes, colorful as they were, their expressions were uniform: hurried, with serious faces. The constant spray of water, day and night, seemed to represent the relentless pressure that Singaporeans carry throughout their lives, unceasing and inexhaustible.
I knew before arriving in Singapore that Singaporeans weren't particularly happy. On the world map, this tiny country is sandwiched between two large nations, Malaysia and Indonesia, with whom relations aren't entirely friendly. Lacking internal resources and facing external pressures, the nation struggles to find room to maneuver, constantly pushing itself to strive for excellence and work hard. During my stay in Singapore, I felt that the words “leisure” and “ease” were luxuries that were hard to come by. Even primary school students were competing over academic achievements, university professors were working tirelessly under the pressure of performance evaluations, and seventy-year-olds were still driving taxis to make ends meet.
City parks are ubiquitous in Singapore, but aside from some holidays, they rarely see people enjoying their leisure time.
This immediately explained why, despite the predominance of Chinese culture and customs, there were few tea-drinking venues or scenes that one would commonly find in China. How could a place like Singapore, where people don't have much free time, have the mood or inclination for such leisurely tea drinking?
I abandoned any hopes of encountering good tea in Singapore and devoted myself to the assortment of teas I had brought from home.
In the southwest corner of Singapore lies a vast garden shaded by lush trees and adorned with green grass. Nanyang Technological University (NTU), ranked among the top 50 universities globally, is the “owner” of this tranquil space.
For a period, a rare scent of Chinese Tea wafted through the air here. Though solitary and faint, it was steady and determined, defying all odds.
I was the source of this tea aroma.
Our month-long course for the “Government Public Management and Governance Training Program” at NTU wasn't too intensive, leaving ample time for self-study. As a result, almost every day, I would read and Drink tea in a small pavilion on the lawn below our apartment building.
In the first few days, only a handful of classmates would wander over to chat idly, sipping a few cups of tea without really paying attention, then wandering off again.
One day, a red Jaguar suddenly stopped by the roadside, and a refined man in his fifties with a healthy physique got out and walked towards me. I recognized him; he was Professor Cai, who had been teaching us about international public relations in recent days. He was a hired professor from Taiwan.
Left image: Sharing Chinese tea in a Singaporean community. Right image: The pavilion where the author drank tea at NTU.
The moment he entered the pavilion, he told me that he had been observing me for several days and was quite curious. How could a student who liked to ask questions and stir up lively discussions in class be content to sit quietly and read or drink Coffee outside of class? I warmly invited Professor Cai to sit down and corrected him, explaining that what I was drinking wasn't coffee but Chinese tea.
He was taken aback and then showed curiosity. I happened to be drinking a Pu'er ripe tea at the time, so I poured him a cup. He cautiously took a sip, tasted it, and then another sip, before his face lit up with pleasant surprise as he finished the cup. I refilled his cup, which he again finished, and this continued for several cups. I chuckled and told Professor Cai that one shouldn't drink tea so hastily, but rather calmly and steadily. I introduced the tea to him, explaining that it was a Pu'er tea from Yunnan province, and that there are two types: raw and ripe. We were drinking the ripe variety, called 7572, which is a classic benchmark for ripe Pu'er tea produced by the Menghai Tea Factory in the late 1990s.
Seeing his confused expression, I realized that this explanation wouldn't be very helpful, so I went back to my apartment to fetch another type of tea. As I brewed it, I patiently explained that this was a raw Pu'er tea called 99 Green Big Tree, commissioned by a Taiwanese businessman named Zhuang Rongjie and custom-produced by the Menghai Tea Factory in 1999. It has since become a renowned Pu'er tea.
Ripe tea uses modern artificial Fermentation techniques to achieve its flavor profile quickly, breaking the historical cycle of “grandfathers storing tea for grandsons to drink.” Raw tea, on the other hand, follows traditional methods, naturally fermenting over time, evolving gradually and transforming through natural processes. These two types of tea, though from the same origin, present completely different taste experiences.
That day, Professor Cai left the pavilion seemingly lost in thought and unsatisfied. The next day, around the same time, the red Jaguar appeared again. This time, there were two people getting out of the car: Professor Cai and Professor Zheng, who was teaching us about the global macroeconomic situation. He was a hired professor of Chinese descent from Australia.
It turned out that the two types of Chinese tea I had shared the previous day had piqued Professor Cai's interest. After class, he had brought along Professor Zheng, with whom he had a close relationship, to taste and learn more about tea. After inviting them to sit down, I briefly considered my options and ran back to my apartment to select two types of tea and bring down a few tall glass cups.
I started with a cup of Green Tea, choosing a type called “Bamboo Leaf Green” from Emei Mountain in Sichuan Province. In the transparent glass cup, a small bunch of weak, withered, and unappealing dry buds sprang to life with the addition of hot water. They climbed to the surface of the water, lying flat for a moment, before descending one by one, elegantly and gracefully, swirling down like ballerinas standing on their tiptoes, standing upright at the bottom of the cup. Those that remained on the surface also revived, becoming plump and beautiful. For a moment, the cup presented a finely crafted, exquisite scene: the surface and the bottom of the cup displayed two opposing arrays of beauty, one resembling bamboo shoots emerging from the earth, the other like countless brushes bowing toward the heavens, surrounded by a pool of clear, green water, with a wisp of white mist rising from the cup.
From the expressions on the professors' faces, it was clear that this visually stunning scene had moved them. For the second type of tea, I brought out “Wudong Duck Shit Fragrance,” a well-known oolong tea from Chaozhou, Guangdong Province. Hearing the name of this tea, the professors looked incredulous, but as boiling water was poured into the teapot and the aroma of orchids filled the air, lingering sweetly, they couldn't help exclaiming, “How can it be so fragrant and delightful?”
That day, whether it was “Bamboo Leaf Green” or “Duck Shit Fragrance,” they savored each sip, and the two international professors became excited like children, asking me many basic questions about Chinese tea. I patiently answered their questions, using the teas we had drunk over the past two days as examples. Finally, I summarized that Chinese teas can be divided into six major categories based on color: green, black, oolong, white, dark, and yellow teas.
The four types of tea we had drunk over these two days belonged to the dark, green, and oolong categories. Due to differences in their origins and production processes, each category has its own characteristics, with varying appearances, aromas, and tastes