4. June 2017

About Us

Liu-Tea&Art is an educational tea brand, focusing on tea science popularization, professional and amateur training, dissemination of cultural and historical knowledge, organizing and assisting exchange activities between Chinese tea and the world’s tea culture. There are tea gardens, teahouse, and tea classroom in China and Germany.


Founder

Wenzhuo Liu 刘文卓 is the monthly columnist of the China national and international tea journal <Tea Times 茶博览>,  with educational background in traditional Chinese medicine and international horticulture, she has published popular science, culture and historical research books and articles, devoted herself to tea professional and universal training and education, opened and managed tea gardens in Germany and China, established tea brands, tea house etc., and has been active in many international tea associations, promoting Europe-China tea related cooperations.

 


Introduction

Tea

Studied Chinese herbal medicine cultivation in China and international horticultural science in Germany, Wenzhuo started to manage the mountain tea farm, produce and promote Wudang Daoist tea since 2014, which is located high in Wudang mountains, Hubei, China. She opened the Wudang tea house and began to grow tea trees in Leine Uplands Steinberg of northwest Germany, the tea garden from scratch in 2016, and some tea trees have been able to pick fresh leaves. The teahouse and tea garden have expanded to cover an area of more than 1.4 hectares. People can participate in tea and Tao related activities here, such as public and private events, workshops, tea tasting, tea cupping, tea ceremony, tea processing and evaluating etc..

Wenzhuo helped her husband Patrick Liu, who is a Taoist priest and practices Taoisum establish the German Taoist Association and Taoist temple, develop the combination of tea culture and Taoist culture in Europe. Wudang Mountain has a long history of Taoist (Daoists) planting and processing tea, written records back to the Song dynasty (960-1279), since tea was used in Daoist ceremonies often and has many other benefits in their practices. Ancient tea trees could still be found growing among high cliffs in deep forests, nowadays, two varieties used mostly in tea productions are transplanted there in 1970s. Tea leaves are harvested in springs annually and sent to different tea factories nearby to produce high- quality green tea, black tea and dark tea.

Wenzhuo felt that only through such personal planting experience can people have a better understanding of the ancient Chinese from picking wild tea as medicine, picking seeds to cultivate tea trees, and improving planting techniques to asexual propagation. Like the ancients, she wants to have a deeper understanding of the whole process from eating tea to drinking, and deeply study the history of tea ceremony and tea culture through her own personal experience.


Art

Wenzhuo has registered Liu-Tea&Art since 2016 in Germany, with the help of the tea and artist team from China, two brands had been developed: Wudang Daoist Tea and Liu-Chinese Art which includes Daoist tea and art items including Wenzhuo’s own art works. Their passion is to spread Wudang Daoist tea and art culture in Europe, along with the mountain tea garden and the Daoist temple in Germany. There are ancient spring water Apenteichquelle, the historical ceramic production town Duingen, which is also called Pottland, and stoneware clay pits nearby. According to local conditions, we not only produce tea, but also use spring water and clay to brew tea and make teaware, experience the integration of German and Chinese tea culture. In 2022, she opened the ceramic studio and launched the tea set ceramic series for the first time, which is made by herself. It integrates German local natural clay and Chinese elements, strives to use local spring water in Germany and local natural clay tea sets to brew locally grown and made tea.


Publication and Cooperation

2020-2023, continued the tea project, Wenzhuo has published her first tea book about tea and Daoism, <Cha Pu 茶谱 – the Daoist Tea Book>, tea articles on the China‘s national tea journal <Tea Times 茶博览>, Asian magazine <Coffee Tea & I>, German tea magazine <t-Magazin> and Tianmu News app 天目新闻 etc… Her academic paper <History of tea trade between China and Germany> have been rewarded and published in the tea academic book <Tea Renowned the World 茶誉天下> (Page 313- 319), Zhejiang People’s Publishing House. This paper is selected into the collection of articles of the 16th International Tea Culture Conference by the China International Tea Culture Research Association in 2021. She has been invited to be the monthly columnist from September 2021 of the <Tea Times>, China National and International Tea Times Periodical Office of Zhejiang Daily Press Group, her column Tea Perspectives is to explore European and Chinese tea culture. Wenzhuo has been the member of Tea grown in Europe association EuT, and worked with China Tea Science Society CTSS and China International Tea Culture Research Association etc...