China Trip 2026: Tea Master Vesper Chan

We landed in Hong Kong - for me, my first visit, for Wendy, a return after many years. I was struck by the collision of the traditional and the modern; as well as the sheer amount of spaghetti bolognese Hong Kongers must consume on a daily basis!

Our brief stay in Hong Kong provided an opportunity to meet with Tea Master Vesper Chan, the pioneer of the "dry storage" technique of aging raw Pu-erh, and the owner of "The Best Tea House".

Master Chan has been Linda Louie's tea master since before she founded Bana Tea Company.  It was an honor to meet him and share some of his specialty tea with him.  We drank many teas that night.  He shared a rare oolong tea from Yunnan.  Yunnan is famous for Pu-erh tea and black tea (and more recently white tea).  But this oolong was a first for us.  It's made by a tea farmer who moved to Yunnan from Taiwan.

Pu-erh is where Master Chan's heart lies, and he shared with us a new experiment he's conducting.  He brewed for us the same ripe Pu-erh tea, fermented in two different ways.

This is a great demonstration of the magic of tea.  We tried both side by side.  On the first brew, these two ripe Pu-erhs show a dramatic visual difference.  The same tea, the same leaves, fermented in two different techniques, left one feeling mild, smooth and light, and the other bold, with a rich flavor.  The energy of the teas was also noticeably different.

By the third brew, the two were visually indistinguishable, but the remarkable flavor difference remained.

We'll have more posts from our China trip in the coming weeks. If you're interested in trying some of Master Chan's teas, we have some at Callisto, many at Bana, and some can be sampled in our tea tastings.