“The best quality tea must have creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen,
curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock,
unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine,
gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr,
and be wet and soft like a fine earth newly swept by rain.”
~Lu Yu, the great Chinese scholar and writer
The health benefits of drinking tea are well documented globally, but the culture and influences of tea drinking extend beyond those. Tea ceremony is a philisophy of life in Japan. In China, tea has inspired great poetry, calligraphy and painting. It is a symbol of strength to Mongolians, a valued, respected gift in Russia and a cultured, intellectually stimulating custom in England.
The Last Concubine High Tea at Dapur Babah Élite is inspired by the ritual from the Chinese emperor, empress and concubines. Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess named Chen Yuanyuan whose dying father was an emperor. Chen was unwanted an sent into exile, simply because she had been born a woman and the queen did not have a son to continue the legacy. Her mother retrieved her and fled from the Palace of the Forbidden City.
At the age of 13, Chen was brought into the palace as a gift to Emperor Chongzhen. She helped him as a servant and soon fell in love with him. The emperor loved her but could not marry her, yet he refused to let her go as he was enamored by her beauty. Chen then fell secretly in love with General Wu Sangui. She married Wu, who was given command of a great army. Chen found herself in the middle of a royal intrigue that was believed to have caused the fall of the Ming Dynasty. She was then held hostage by the emperor to ensure that Wu honor his promise to save the Ming Dynasty. She was, in fact, also held hostage by other famous and important leaders, such as Li Zicheng.
Her heart belonged to Wu Sangui, however, and she waited for him to return. She made her way through many dangerous events and was almost raped on several occasions because of her beauty. When Beijing fell to a rebel army led by Li Zicheng, Emperor Chongzhen gathered the entire imperial household and ordered them, except for his sons, to commit suicide. The Empress hanged herself. Princess Chang Ping refused. In a fit of rage Chongzhen had her left arm cut off. He then fled to nearby Jingshan Park, where he hanged himself on the famous Guilty Chinese Scholar Tree. Chen reluctantly assisted by helping him up to the noose, according to some accounts.
Li Zicheng established what he called the Shun Dynasty, but it fell to the Manchus in the end. Seizing their chances, the Manchus crossed the Great Wall after Wu Sangui, who was raged by jealousy, opened the gates at Shanghai Pass. They quickly overthrew Li Zicheng.
After finally reuniting with Wu Sangui, Chen ultimately realized her sins, that she had opened China’s land to the foreign Manchus and had betrayed the Ming dynasty. The good image of her husband soon faded and she decided to remove herself into a temple to find peace and forgiveness. In her last evening as a princess, Chen Yuanyuan arranged an Imperial Tea Ceremony. In this ceremony, she asked forgiveness from the spirit of King Hwu (a monk who destroyed Yuan dynasty and established the Ming dynasty) and asked permission from the Goddess Kuan Yin, to let her to enter the temple, where she will be spending her lifetime starting the following morning. This procession has become the main theme of The Last Concubine High Tea at Dapur Babah Élite.
