Saturday. The sun kindly smiled upon the school's grass field.
The day prior to this event, the president announced in the wechat that there was going to be a picnic on the school grass field.
I counted a dozen people in total, including some unfamiliar faces.
"Hey everyone, I brought some snacks for you all." I said setting down the rice cakes I just brought from the convenience store beside.
"Thank you!" The president said, today she wore a set of casual clothing. Black coat with white sweater beneath, black skirt and stocking with boots. "There's some plums here, do you want some?" she said offering a plastic can of it.
"I think I am good." I waved in decline, as I sat across from her.
All the guys sat crossed legged while the girls sat with knees folded and shin touching the ground. At the center of all of us was a brown 3x3m cloth serving as the picnic blanket, but down the middle of the cloth, was another stripped red cloth running down the center of it. And on it laid all sorts of tea utensils.
"Alright, today we are going to continue on the process on how to serving tea. Serious now." The president said with a serious voice.
"The president is getting serious now!" taunted one of the guys.
"One more word from you Jing-kun and I am going to send your trap pic to the wechat group." The President barked.
"Ok you win!" Jing-kun backed down in less then half a second.
"Anyways, I noticed a lot of newcomers here today. Let's have you all introduce yourself for a round first before we began. Starting from you Zhou ya-qi." The president gestured to the girl on her left.
"Hello everyone, I am Zhou ya-qi, and the one next to me is Zhao ya-qi and we are cousins, and both our majors are medicine."
Zhou ya-qi had a blonde dyed ponytail while Zhao ya-qi had a long free falling black hair.
"Hai!" Zhao ya-qi waved to everyone.
"I am Jing-kun!" Jing-kun. "I am currently single. If you know any pretty 1st year kohai, you can give them my wechat. And I will do my duty as senpai to help them!" Jing-kun smiled playfully.
"Don't listen to Jing-Kun! He's just thirsty!" The president reached over to pinch him on the shoulder, followed with a wave of laughter.
"I am xiao-feng, my major is design." She bowed to everyone. She had short light caramel dyed hair, and wore a brown hoodie and jeans.
She is kinda cute...
"I am Wang, 3rd year major in physics." The next guy said, he was pretty average looking Asian guy and wore a dark brimmed glasses.
"I am Kun-kun." Said a guy who appeared to be in Phd, and wore a full formal suit.
"I am Sun, today's meeting is a gift from fate." The guy said with a slow deep voice.
"You guys can just call me Ice-kun." The next guy said.
"I am Fang-jing, 2nd year major in economics." She said next.
"My name is Qi-xuan I am the vice president of the tea club." He said.
"I am xu-ran, first year in construction." The girl beside me said, she had long free falling silky black hair, silver limed glasses and wore a traditional white han-fu.
"I am Tao, I am first year international student." I said.
"Oh which country are you from?" xiao-feng asked.
"I am born in China, but I am technically Canadian citizen." I said for like the 7000th time since I came to China.
"I am Yu-hang." The girl after me said with a quiet voice, as if she was non-existent.
"Alright it seems everyone got a chance to introduce themselves..." the president clapped her hands.
"Ohoho~ You guys already started?" Came a new voice from the side. The guy looked like your typical NEET, though I was guessing his age is around early 20s.
"I didn't know you were going to come today! Everyone this is our great noble ex-president, Shao-xuan!" the president said enthusiastically and everyone clapped along.
"Psh! Psh! Psh! Enough with the flattery, I am just curious what you are teaching the new comers." Shao-xuan pushed up his glasses a little, his expression unchanging.
I could see pressure under the president's smile, but regardless she held her smile:
"I am just teaching them the basics. Like, do any of you new comers knows what this is?" she held up a particular tea utensil.
"That's the six-gentlemen." Xu-ran, the girl beside me answered.
"Correct." The president snickered at Shao-xuan. "Can anyone tell me the name of each part and its specific usage?"
"The six-gentlemen is made up of six-components. Tea spoon is for scooping up the tea leaves, tea nail is for breaking up tea biscuit, tea thong is for dumping the water from the ping-Ming cup, tea sieve is for funneling the tea, chaze can be used for scrapping tea leaves and the tea canister is used to hold all the other components of the six gentlemen."
"Good good good!" The president clapped like a proud mother.
"Alright..." Shao-xuan sneered at the answer.
"Anyways, is the hot water ready yet?" the president asked.
"Nope, it's all empty." The vice president said.
"Jing-kun! Go get some hot water right now! ASAP!" the president shouted in command.
"Yes ma'am!" Jing-kun saluted then ran off with the hot water can.
"I see a lot of new comers this year." Shao-xuan said, as he squeezed himself next to the vice president.
"We got about 30 new members this year, 10 in this spring season." The president smiled in reply.
"That's pretty good! Reminds me I only got about 6 members in my time..." he chuckled.
"Oh yeah!" The president clapped her hands together all of a sudden. "I haven't told you guys about our club's tradition. Our club has been around since 2013, we are currently on the 6th generation, including myself. And each year our club will have a 2nd year student chosen as the next club president. And that person will be the club leader for one year, then resign and choose a successor who is in 2nd year by that time."
"It's like the Hokage in Naruto, one generation after another." Shao-xuan added. "The previous club president are indeed respectable figures..." his voice trailed off then looked to the president wordlessly.
Huh...
"They are the true pillars of this club indeed. Though it's unfortunate we don't see them anymore as they are all in their masters or graduated." The president added.
"Backkkkkkk!!!" came Jing-kun's voice and looking as if he was the monkey king who just returned from the west heaven (Journey to the west reference).
"Finally some tea!" the president clasped her hand together delightfully.
"We have like 15 people, there might not be enough cups..."
"Don't worry I brought some cups." Shao-xuan said as he unslung his back pack and took out 3 extra cups.
"Alright, let's drink, or else the water is going to get cold." The president said as she grabbed the hot water can and poured it into a clear glass tea pot.
"There is a lot of people today, so I brought an extra set of gong-dao mug, gai-wan and the six gentlemen. The new comers will use a set and can practice with them. Do any of you want to try?" she scanned us new comers, and no one seemed too eager to make a fool of themselves...
"Let me try." Xu-ran said with a quiet voice, as she took over the gai-wan and gong-dao mug.
"The tea box is here." The president said, sliding a red metal box to her.
"Thank you president!" Xu-ran replied with a kind smile.
"No problem! You know how to hold the gai-wan properly right?"
"Do you hold it this way?" Xu-ran said, as she held up the gai-wan.
"You only need 3 fingers to hold the gai-wan. Make sure your fingers aren't touching anything beneath the rim or the lid because once the tea water is in, it's gonna be hot." The president said, taking over the gai-wan and explaining for all of us to see.
"Make sure you hold the gai-wan by the rim with your thumb and middle finger. And hold the handle of the lid with your forefinger. How you hold the handle with your forefinger is up to you, you can hold it with your tip if your finger if your hand is large enough, or use the 2nd part of the finger to latch onto the handle of the gai-wan."
"And remember when you are pour out the tea water, you need to make a small opening on your gai-wan like this:" the president pulled back her finger ever so precisely, creating a small angle gap between the lid and the cup.
"Then you turn the gai-wan 90 degrees sideways and you will see the tea water streaming down from the gap and into the gong-dao mug below." She demonstrated, and the tea water made a perfect little waterfall into the mug below.
"Wow! President you're so good!" Xu-ran clasped her hand in praise.
"Of course! She's like a goddess descent into the mortal realm! Just being in the presence of her is a reward more than enough for us peasants." Jing-kun said in the background.
"Keep the rainbow flattery going!" the president gestured proudly.
"President is the real boss!" Kun-kun added.
"Goddess is a word of understatement if used on you." Sun said with a deep voice.
Shao-xuan chuckled but said nothing.
"Are you guys still going to drink tea or not?" the vice president said with a plain voice.
Tea club huh...
I suppose it's not bad...
Q: What's your favourite type of tea?