Recently I got to taste tea with my flat mate, Jia. It is a Taiwan oolong tea ordered on Taobao, and Taiwan is famous for producing high quality oolong teas. As Jia described, this oolong tea really has a smooth soy milk flavor. Actually, I didn’t expect that we could order a good tea from Taobao without seeing and tasting the tea first. To me, having tea while talking with someone during this lockdown, really is something so comforting and pleasant. Today also is the Qingming Festival known as Tomb Sweeping Day. Qingming Festival is the 15th day after Vernal Equinox (春分), which is one of Chinese 24 solar terms. This day is for people to not only honor the ancestors and people who passed away, but also take time to go out and enjoy the spring time. Even though, it seems that it is not quite possible to go out at this moment, we can still have some tea with us. Now is the time to harvest Ming Qian tea (明前茶), namely Pre-Qingming tea, the tea being plucked and processed around Qingming Festival. These teas are mostly fresh buds with rich aroma and nutrients. Therefore, the quality is high and they are considered the top-grade tea. However, since the temperature is generally low before Qingming Festival, and limited amount of buds could meet the standard to be plucked, so these buds are the previous ones and the price for the pre-qingming teas is higher. Tea merchants also like to describe their teas as Pre-Qingming tea to indicate they are the good tea. So don’t be fooled by the appearance or the marketing techniques, I suggest my listeners and myself to get to know more about tea before buying one, then it’s going to help us find that cup of tea we really like. Reference: https://zhaozhoutea.com/qingming-清明/ https://www.sohu.com/a/70449526_202329 https://www.freshcup.com/early-harvest-chinese-teas/ https://www.teaformeplease.com/tea-nerd-dictionary-pre-qingming/