By Vivian Zhang, August 2025

When I first started with tea, I was a curious young girl who had just left her family, searching for new places on land and a new identity for my soul.

After years of courses, wild tastings, travels, and experimentation, I realised what I had been chasing — what was already there, in the open air, waiting for me to taste, study, and live — was my intangible Chinese identity.

Through tea, I was discovering the heart of the Chinese continent: the same heart that has always pulsed through these lands, nourishing generation after generation, growing and transforming with each person who cultivated it. I was now one of them; part of this multitude. A young girl in the early 2000s beginning her own journey, I felt myself woven into the wider culture of tea.

I began to notice that many in my generation shared the same path. Our parents were often absorbed in other pursuits while we grew up, and so we each set out on a solitary journey, discovering a collective identity no one had taught us before.

Gradually, my path shifted from studying to teaching, from learning to researching, tracing ancient traditions and new evolutions of Chinese tea culture. Alongside tea professionals, scholars, farmers, and dedicated drinkers, I found a community that became deeply valuable to me — and to my identity, which was also our shared identity.

In time, I added farming to my research, founding Eastern Leaves in our beloved tea forest on Mount Nannuo, Yunnan. From there I began travelling westward, sharing my learning — and, once again, my Chinese tea identity — with anyone curious enough to exchange a conversation with me.

For years, together with a circle of passionate Chinese tea scholars and professionals, I dreamed of a platform: a true home for the profound and intricate world of Chinese tea culture. A place where its deep history, economic significance, and unparalleled social legacy could be studied, shared, and celebrated on a global stage.

Today, it is with immense pride and joy that I introduce the first public event of the Chinese Tea Culture Foundation, a long-awaited project that is finally coming to life. This foundation is born from a passion to preserve and promote our heritage, and it is fundamentally open to international cooperation and dialogue. We believe that the story of Chinese tea is a story of global connection, and it deserves a global conversation.

To inaugurate this journey, we have curated a cycle of four seminars in Milan and The Netherlands this September and October, each designed to explore a different facet of tea’s incredible role in shaping our world.

Our journey begins with Zhou Chonglin, one of tea’s most brilliant and charming historians. In “The Tea Expedition,” he will present his captivating theory on why tea, unlike salt, demanded long-distance travel, forging the Tea Horse Road and connecting empires. We will taste living history with him, from a fresh Horse Driver’s Tea to a rare Tibetan tea from the 1970s.

That same afternoon, Lorenzo and I will guide you along “The Incense & Tea Arc” on the Maritime Silk Road. This is not a lecture; it is an immersive workshop. You will touch and smell precious Agarwood samples from across Asia before we taste the fusion of tea and incense, exploring the moment luxury exchange met bulk commodity trade.

On Sunday, I will lead a session on the modern legacy of the Tea Horse Road. “The Modern Explorer” tells the story of Hu Mingfang’s legendary trek to retrace the ancient path and how his act of preservation now inspires a new generation of tea innovators. We will taste this evolution in a cup, from a traditional caravan tea to a stunning Yunnan Oriental Beauty that represents a new chapter of global dialogue.

We will conclude with a deeply moving seminar by Ms. Song Angi, who will gently guide us down “The Human Path.” She will share stories of the everyday people—the horse drivers, the families, the Tibetan communities—whose courage and endurance were the true fabric of the Tea Horse Road. Each story is paired with a tea that whispers their past, culminating in a tasting of a profound living artifact: a Tibetan tea from the 1950s.

This series is more than just seminars about tea. It is an invitation to understand the forces of history, economics, and human connection through the leaf that built roads and sustained faith. It is the perfect embodiment of our foundation’s mission.

We have waited a long time for this. Now, we cannot wait to share it with you.

Join us in Milan and the Netherlands to be a part of this beginning, I will be glad to meet you and discuss with you the many possibilities of this new journey.

With warmth,

Vivian Zhang

-----

Resources:

Events in Milan, September 27th-28th, 2025

• The Tea Expedition: Caravans, Commodities & The First Global Economy. Milan, September 27th, 10:30 am
• The Incense & Tea Arc: Scents of Empire on the Maritime Silk Road. September 27th, 2:30 pm
• The Modern Explorer: Retracing the Tea Horse Ancient Road. Milan, September 28th, 10:30 am
• The Human Path: Stories of Everyday People on the Ancient Tea Horse Road. September 28th, 2:30 pm

Events in The Netherlands, October 10th-11th, 2025: link to be updated by the Sept. 15th

Website: www.chineseteaculture.org

Call for international cooperation: if you wish to be part of the foundation and actively contribute to its activity, you can write us an email with your reference and we will be glad to start a conversation with you. 

To stay updated, subscribe to our newsletter.