Take a trip to Taiwan and uncover the deeper meanings of tea culture, including the willingness to live simply, humbly and with discipline. Wang Yong sits down and brews a pot.

On a cool night last month, a cup of tea brought me to tears. As soon as I knelt down in a serene and spacious tea room looking out through a wall of French windows into the woods and brooks, I was speechless.

I was entranced. I thought I was living in the 4th century AD, when Chinese scholars would drink tea in the mountains to feel as one with nature.

With a group of tea fans from China’s mainland, I was sipping tea at Shi Yang Shan Fang (literally meaning a mountainside house of nutritious food) in a largely unworked valley near Taipei. It had just rained, and the valley was quiet except for babbling brooks and leaves rustling in the wind.

A young man in a purple robe served tea. The color of his robe resembled that of a Tibetan Buddhist. As I looked into the cup of tea on my table, a Buddhist mantra could be heard in the background.

My eyes teared as I came to see my life as light as tea leaves and my spirit as pure as undisturbed water.

All I needed for a simpler yet fuller life, I realized at that moment, was a humble mind.

It was a rare experience. In my 10 years of serious tea drinking on the mainland, I have seen too many tea rooms consumed by loud laughter and guests devoid of respect for tea as nature’s ultimate gift to lead us toward a simple and disciplined life.

Mostly, it struck me that people were drinking tea to kill time or to flaunt wealth. Certain teas have become extremely expensive and nouveau riche have learned to boast about the price, but not its true value.

“For now, many people on the mainland regard a tea room just as a venue where they gather for fun or business,” says Xiao Fang, a Beijing-based veteran tea connoisseur and senior manager of a new media project on food culture, who was also taking part in the trip. “While they drink tea, they talk about everything but tea — business, household chores, etc.”

At Shi Yang Shan Fang, I found for the first time that tea alone was a source of satisfaction, that it was not fodder for vanity talk.

As our visit was short, we didn’t have a chance to talk much with Lin Pin-hui, owner of the venue. Lin did grace us with his presence toward the end of our tea party. He gave us a quick tour of other tea rooms not yet open for business. The views were amazing.

The rooms didn’t seem like rooms at all. Most of them featured one side without a wall. You could sit on a mat, look upon the valley and feel the wind. In these tea rooms, no one felt like talking. We were silent. If I could, I would stay there forever, like a tree.

Lin told Life Week magazine in April that he likes to build tea rooms that suit the natural surroundings in the area.

Some people compared his bucolic home to Japanese gardens, but he disagreed. He said in the earlier interview that Japanese gardens feature too much human intervention, while ideal Chinese gardens often maximize the beauty of nature.

Like a bird

Indeed, Shi Yang Shan Fang was to me what a nest is to a bird. When I knelt down to drink, I didn’t feel part of something artificial. I felt like a bird under the sky.

Shi Yang Shan Fang was only one of the stops on our tour of Taiwan tea houses and farms. The tour was organized by the Hangzhou-based China National Tea Museum.

If Shi Yang Shan Fang enlightened me with Buddhist peace, then Wistaria Tea House (Zi Teng Lu) in Taipei greeted me with Confucian benevolence and the Lim Museum (Qian Hou Xiang) near Taipei awed me with Taoist detachment.

Enjoying tea in these three places gave me a rare chance to reflect on what’s in a cup of tea.

Each cup features a hearty brew of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. It’s about simplicity, humbleness and discipline — the very hope of Lu Yu (AD 733-804), who is widely regarded as the “father of Chinese tea.”

In his “Classic of Tea” (“Cha Jing”), the world’s first book on tea, Lu said tea is best for someone who is simple, humble and disciplined since tea is naturally bitter.

I was lucky to have experienced Lu’s way of thinking. And I was not alone.

Shen Guoqin, a senior administrator of the China National Tea Museum who led our tour to Taiwan, was also impressed.

“I found people (at Shi Yang Shan Fang, Wistaria Tea House and the Lim Museum) were all very humble, quiet, simple-minded, clean and fresh,” recalls Shen. “When I drank tea there, my mind easily rhymed with the dynamics of tea.”

“This is the way of tea,” says Xiao, referring to the quiet appreciation of nature when having tea. “Some people would say Taiwanese are too pretentious, but I don’t think so. Holding nature and tea in awe was a part of ancient Chinese culture. Some of us have lost this and yet we blame tea lovers in Taiwan for being ‘too pretentious’.”

A tea expert from Taiwan who asked not to be named says: “When we have tea in Taiwan, it’s all about quiet appreciation of tea and nature. We seldom talk big — about politics, religion or whatever — in tea rooms.”

Quiet meditation

The Wistaria Tea House, located in the center of Taipei, has a garden of gorgeous wistaria trees.

Chow Yu, who operates the Wistaria Tea House, entertained us with a precious tea he had saved for years. Again, we didn’t talk very much. Much like Lin at Shi Yang Shan Fang, Chow allowed us to enjoy the tea in quiet meditation most of the time.

Of the few words he said, this impressed me most: “I just had a nap in the afternoon, so that I would have energy to entertain you now.” The sincere way he treated us reminded me of a Confucian saying: “Is it not a joy to have friends coming from afar?”

A Confucian scholar indeed he is. While Confucius talked about ren, or treating others like oneself, Chow talks about gan tong, or communication with nature and others.

At the end of the evening, Chow gave each of us a copy of his article written in April. He wrote: “If drinking tea can help us open our mind and feel for nature, won’t it also help us open other doors of our mind long locked in our struggle to survive?”

Chow was quoted as saying in another interview: “Tea is magic. When we sit down to genuinely enjoy tea, we all have the same enlightenment, whether we are a noble or a nobody.” Chow says tea is about respect — a very Confucian concept.

And what makes man respect nature and each other? In Chow’s view, it’s the law of subtraction. Whether it is Confucianism, Buddhism or Taoism, subtraction is the way to goodness, Chow says.

“In today’s dizzy and deafening consumerist world, tea is like spring water that can cleanse our desire-driven mind,” he says.

At the Lim Museum, the image of tea as spring water became clear. The museum is on the bank of a river that runs into a reservoir that provides water to millions of residents in Taipei. I sat by the crystal clean river, separated only by French windows. As I sipped tea, it felt like I was drinking nature itself.

Never complain

During the trip, we stopped at a makeshift shelter on top of a mountain — home to a tea maker’s family. I called it a “shelter” instead of a house because it was made of iron sheets and pipes. We reached it after driving for hours on bumpy mountain roads, some still covered in fallen rocks caused by recent landslides.

The shelter looked dilapidated. Its kitchen was covered with oil stains and flies were everywhere. There were only a few stools, so many of us had to stand to eat.

As I elbowed my way around in the crowded shelter from which great tea was made, I spotted a poster on the old-fashioned refrigerator. It said: “A man should never complain, however hard life might be.”

Such is the spirit of tea in Taiwan: Be at ease with nature, whether you’re a somebody or a nobody.

“China’s mainland is growing fast and so is our tea industry. Many tea professionals, especially those from the old generations, have contributed greatly to the prosperity of tea culture,” says Shen from the China National Tea Museum. “On the other hand, Taiwan has kept traditional Chinese culture while also absorbing the best of foreign cultures.”

Drinking high-mountain tea:

Taiwan’s high-mountain tea generally refers to oolong tea grown about 1,000 meters above sea level. In certain areas, it can be as high as 2,600 meters above sea level. Because of the altitude, this kind of tea is very “cold,” with a light but enduring fragrance.

Li Shan (Pear Mountain) and Da Yu Ling (Dayu Mountain) produce some of Taiwan’s best high-mountain Oolong teas. Tea trees on Li Shan grow among pear and other fruit trees, thus absorbing a fruit fragrance. The tea is lightly fermented.

On Da Yu Ling, you can even eat raw tea leaves as they’re pesticide-free. They taste like a bitter-sweet orange — very refreshening.

Travel tips:

Be prepared for rough roads. For a few days, we lived in farmer-like cottages in mountains at altitudes of 1,000 meters or more.

Some fellow travelers suffered car-sickness as we ventured onto roads up to 3,000 meters above sea level. The views are truly gorgeous for those who can stomach the rough roads.

Buying tea:

Tea farmers usually don’t sell tea to individuals. They typically do wholesale business with tea dealers. But farmers will let you taste their tea. If you like it, try to find a dealer who gives you the best price.

Buying tea ware:

Downtown Taipei shops are too expensive. Go to Yingge Old Street in New Taipei City, which is not far from Taipei. They sell tea cups, pots and vases.