The UBC Tea Club is back in brewing business
Warm overhead lights and soft jazz music transform the Michael Kingsmill Forum into a site of anticipation. The table at the centre of the room is set with every possible tool needed to brew the three teas on the tasting menu for the night. A monitor in the back of the room shows the glassware, kettles, strainers and measuring tools up close for those sitting to the sides of the demonstration area. Around 30 participants introduce themselves to their neighbours and examine the delicate teacups at their places. They eagerly await the start of A Sip of Autumn, the UBC Tea Club’s first public-facing event since their reconstitution two months ago. The reborn club began holding events in the summer, and is in the process of becoming officially AMS-affiliated.
When developing the new club this past January, Tea Club President Cathy Wang met with the old Tea Club’s founder, who started his version of the group around 2014. That club garnered some attention on campus during its run, but had petered out by 2017.
“It was likely just that they didn’t work on how they wanted to pass over the Tea Club once the president was gone, and that’s probably how it didn’t work out in the end,” Wang said.
Not wanting to repeat history, the current Tea Club’s executive team is looking to welcome new members by planning events that will attract both tea enthusiasts and newcomers. “A Sip of Autumn” is a clear example of an event that captures that first target audience. O5 Rare Tea Bar is a tea bar and store beloved in its Kitsilano neighbourhood, and an essential spot for “tea nerds” in Vancouver.
When Wang and her team of five executives reached out to O5, hoping to collaborate with staff who could bring their expertise to a tea-tasting event on campus, workshop hosts and O5 employees Geoff Sugiyama and Raphael Pirenne were filled with excitement. They were happy to meet university-aged people who shared their passion for tea, and couldn’t believe that UBC had a tea club again after seven years.
The autumn workshop took place on a rainy afternoon — the weather contributed to the cosy atmosphere. Tea Club executives introduced themselves, alongside Sugiyama and Pirenne. They explained that attendees should put their tea cups up on the ledge of their seating areas for each round of tasting they wanted to partake in. A journal was also passed around the room throughout the tasting so that participants could comment on the three tea selections the club executives had chosen from O5’s extensive collection.
The first round of tea was a 2025 chiran shincha tea from Kagoshima, Japan. A variety of green tea with earthy richness, senchas — a different transliteration of what O5 calls shincha — are made by steaming tea leaves shortly after harvest to prevent oxidation. They are then dried, never undergoing a roasting process.
The room tried this sencha twice, with each “extraction” — brewing of the same leaves — changing its texture and exposing different tasting notes. The vibrantly green colour of the tea might make those familiar with matcha anticipate its grassy and vegetal flavour. The tea journalers called it “astringent,” “like newly-mowed lawn,” and said they could feel the tiny green particles swirling through the liquid, creating a mouth-feel of something thicker than water.
The sencha’s texture was definitely notable. On the first infusion, it was extremely rich and starchy. Someone else in the room commented that it reminded them of a Chinese soup made from mung beans. There was a sure heartiness to the tea, as well as a bitter aftertaste. Each of these was slightly reduced on the second extraction, allowing for a balance between the vegetal notes and the bitterness.
After the first tasting round, participants received a quick tea lesson on Darjeeling teas in preparation for the next cup: a first flush variety from Mirik Valley, West Bengal. Darjeeling teas are brewed in the Himalayan Mountains. They were historically grown by the British East India Company, which took tea leaves from China and processed them.
Black teas grown and made in the northernmost region of West Bengal today are still referred to as Darjeelings, named after the Indian state’s northernmost city. The first flush designation given to the Sourenee Classic 2025 tea served at the event means that its leaves were allowed less oxidation before roasting, resulting in a Darjeeling that is somewhere between a white tea and a black tea.
The first flush Darjeeling was honey-coloured in appearance, with light fruity and floral notes. The tea relied heavily on aromatics; brewed tea leaves were passed around the room for everyone to smell before sipping — or preferably slurping — the Darjeeling. Its delicate flavour relies on letting it cover the back of the palate. A poetic journal comment left by an attendee read: “O tea, O life. Bearing the bitterness of past, that leads to floral future.”
The Kingsmill Forum got chattier as the caffeine began to stimulate attendees. Not only does talking about tea and its relationship with history, anthropology and globalization help people connect over shared interests and experiences, but the chemical effects of drinking tea can liven up a group of strangers and help break the ice.
“The most beautiful thing that I’ve watched blossom [with the Tea Club] is many friendships and many new connections that may not have happened beforehand,” said Wang, reflecting on the Tea Club’s affect the social and cultural scene at UBC.
The club aims to provide an open space for people to relax, hang out, learn and be involved in something on campus where the level of commitment is left completely up to each individual.
For the third round of tea, Sugiyama and Pirenne brewed misty mountain black tea, grown and prepared in the highly elevated Changxing mountains in China’s Zhejiang province. This modern Chinese tea was fully oxidized before roasting, making it a “real” black tea in Western terms — black, here, describes the colour of the processed leaves.
This misty mountain tea was full of sweetness and tannins — a real flavourful brew reminiscent of eating high-cacao dark chocolate. The notes in its aftertaste were described by O5 staff as similar to a cinnamon bun, though participants in the room argued it was closer to a warm cookie, or “a chocolate chip and banana muffin.”
With extra time remaining before the end of the event, the O5 instructors revealed that they had an extra tea to brew for the group. Clearing space on the table for a large woven basket, they introduced O5’s horseback tea: a compressed black tea made by a Chinese company that emulates traditional techniques used for the storage and transportation of tea on the ancient Silk Road.
For this surprise experience, everyone was encouraged to get up from their seats to look, feel, smell and interact with the compressed brick of tea in its basket container. The horseback tea’s characteristics were directly impacted by its storage; instead of an opaque paper bag, the leaves were preserved in dried bamboo that smelt vaguely salty — perhaps like the roads of ancient trade routes would have smelled. Minerality from the soil a tea is grown in, plus particles introduced in processing or from transportation, contribute to its “terroir” — a term describing flavour resulting from the environments in which food is grown or stored. When brewed, this tea was dark and slightly savoury, full-bodied and smoky.
After a period of free-mingling among the crowd and personal questions for the hosts, the Tea Club’s executives thanked everyone for attending and previewed an upcoming event in January: a tasting and craft night with UBC Knit and Sew.
In addition to larger collaborative events, the Tea Club also hosts biweekly tastings for members. Sometimes there are fun crafts or activities, such as the paper lantern-making at their Halloween tasting. After paying the membership fee, these club tasting events become free to attend.
Tickets for “A Sip of Autumn” were priced at $15 for members, and $22 for non-members. While this price point may have potentially turned some students away, it is considerably cheaper than other tea-tasting rates in Vancouver. For example, an hour-long tasting of three teas at another rare tea supplier and bar, Cultivate, is priced at $60 per person. UBC Tea Club members now also receive the benefit of 15% off their purchases at O5 Rare Tea Bar.
With rooms booked for future low-key events and gatherings, the Tea Club also has ideas for further collaborations in the broader Vancouver community. They are already in conversation with the Nikkei Cultural Centre, the Japanese community centre based in Burnaby, which has its own tea programs. Wang and the executive team hope to establish stronger relationships so that Tea Club’s future leaders are set up for success.
So what is the ultimate goal for the club, beyond being a social space to drink and appreciate tea? Wang said it best: “We want it to be a bridge to that next level of, ‘Not only am I drinking this tea, but I’m also understanding where it comes from, why it tastes the way it does, and what’s the background of it.’
“People who casually enjoy tea can cross that bridge through these events. Maybe this can spark their interest a little, and if they’re still not super interested in the history, good tea is still good tea.”
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