White Peony’s Tea Legends Vol.1

Suzhou, Kangxi Era Qing Dynasty

Every spring, when Peony Pink Mount was still veiled in the morning mist and the scent of blooming peaches and plums filled the air—almost as if nature had “overdone it” with the fragrance—the tea bushes in these lands awakened to a new life. Suzhou was famous for its luxury tea, but one variety stood out: Biluochun. Why? Probably because everyone who drank it felt that time didn’t just slow down—it stumbled backward, tripping over its own past. But no one knew that yet. At the foot of the mountain in waves of harmony, in a small village, lived a girl named Lin Qiao. She was only seventeen, yet her eyes already held the kind of deep exhaustion one usually acquires after two lifetimes in bureaucratic service. Her family grew white tea, and naturally, Lin Qiao was supposed to help. But she had other interests—like sitting on a rock and wondering if life itself was just someone’s poorly edited first draft. “Tea is like time,” her uncle, Li Feng, the local organic tea master, used to say. “The longer you steep it, the more bitter it gets.” Lin Qiao would roll her eyes the way only a teenager could, convinced that she already understood the nature of existence far better than these adults with their endless proverbs. But one day, everything changed.

The First Sip

A spring morning. Lin Qiao woke up with the distinct feeling that her consciousness was running late, like a postal tortoise trudging along an endless road. She stumbled into the kitchen, where her uncle was already brewing tea. “Try this. Fresh leaves from Dongting,” he said, handing her a cup. She took a sip. And everything. Collapsed like a paper fan, only to unfold again—different. Lin Qiao was standing in the same place, but… not quite. She was eight years old. And she remembered this day perfectly. “You’ve been here before,” a voice said behind her. She turned and saw… herself. Only older. Maybe twenty years old. “What the…” she started, but her older self cut her off. “Don’t worry. You always react like this.” Lin Qiao felt her brain begin to overheat. “Always?” “Yes. Every spring, you drink Biluochun and end up here. But you always forget.” “Why?” The older version thought for a moment. “Maybe because it’s a way to nature.”

A Story Within a Story

To understand how Biluochun came to be, we have to go back a couple of centuries—back when tea wasn’t just a drink but a kind of social network where all important matters were settled. During the Ming Dynasty, when Zhu Yuanzhang was still figuring out how to hold onto power, a nun lived in the Dongting Mountains. No one knew her name—perhaps not even she did. Every day, she picked tea leaves with such slow, deliberate care that time itself seemed to adjust its rhythm around her. Legend has it that one day, as she brewed tea, she saw something in her cup: a scene from the future. A man in strange clothes sat before a glowing board, typing something. The nun didn’t understand what she was seeing, but she figured that people in the future must have completely lost their minds. That tea became the first Biluochun—a tea that didn’t just invigorate but subtly “shifted” one’s perception of time.

An Internal Dialogue

Back to Lin Qiao. “So, what am I supposed to do?” she asked her older self. “Think of time as a snail,” the older Lin Qiao began, clearly unconcerned that her younger self was in no mood for philosophical metaphors. “It moves slowly and in a spiral. Biluochun is like a key—it lets you see where you’ve already been.” “And why would I want that?” “So you don’t keep stepping on the same rakes. Although…” she smirked, “you’ll step on them anyway. We’re Lin Qiao, after all.”The younger Lin sighed. “Can I just drink my tea and not overthink everything?” “You can. But then you’ll live like everyone else—thinking time only moves forward.”Lin Qiao took another sip.

Tea and Power

While Lin Qiao was struggling with her tea-induced existential crisis, in another place—Beijing—Emperor Kangxi was looking for something to help him… well, “manage” the endless affairs of the empire. “I need a tea that makes time slow down,” he told his advisors. Enter Biluochun. When Kangxi tasted it for the first time, he said: “Interesting. Delicious. Why do I feel like I’ve said this before?” “It’s… a unique feature of the tea, Your Majesty,” a servant replied cautiously. “Hmm. So now I control time?” “More like… time will play with you.”

The Last Sip

Back to Lin Qiao. She woke up. Again. A cup of now-cold tea sat in her hand. “So what now?” she asked the empty room. A whisper answered: “Now you know that the snail always returns home.” The next day, she brewed Biluochun again. And forgot everything that had happened. But she was certain of one thing: this tea was not just a drink. It was… a loop.