Cha Qi: Is It Mystical?

Hear someone at the tea table say "this tea has strong cha qi," and a newcomer is often baffled: where is the qi? Can you smell it? Can you taste it? Cha qi (茶氣, "tea energy") really is the most abstract term in the pu'er world. It's not among the evaluation terms in the national standards, and no instrument can measure it. But it isn't made up out of nothing; it's a shared description built up by tea lovers over long years of drinking tea.

What Is Cha Qi?

The tea world talks about cha qi from roughly two angles:

• The strength of the taste: The impact of the tea on entry, its concentration, the intensity of bitterness, astringency, and huigan, and how long it lingers in the mouth and throat. This angle is more concrete, close to the evaluation term "strong and intense."
• The overall feeling after drinking: Changes you notice in your body after a few cups, such as feeling warm, feeling alert, or sensations in the head or back. This angle is more subjective and varies from person to person.

When many tea lovers talk about cha qi, they actually mean both: a tea that has strength on entry and, after a few infusions, a clear physical sensation is said to have "strong cha qi."

What Does Strong Cha Qi Feel Like?

Tea lovers' common descriptions include:

• The body slowly warming up after a few cups;
• Light sweat on the back or forehead;
• Feeling alert and focused;
• A slight feeling of fullness or tingling at the top of the head or the back of the neck;
• Burping;
• Sensations in the mouth and throat that last a long time.

By contrast, tea with "gentle cha qi" drinks smoothly, with fainter physical sensations. Examples commonly given in the tea world: tea from around Bulang Mountain in Menghai is often described as having strong, domineering cha qi, while Yiwu tea is often called gentle and lingering. These are style impressions passed around among tea lovers, and individual experience varies greatly.

Why Do Some People Say It Makes Them Sweat?

This is a very common description among tea lovers, especially when drinking hot tea, drinking many cups in a row, or drinking stronger raw tea. Purely from everyday experience, several possible factors are intertwined:

• Drinking a lot of hot water at once naturally makes you feel warm;
• Strong tea contains more caffeine and other compounds;
• The surroundings are warm and you're relaxed while drinking tea.

So "breaking a sweat" is more a description of a situational feeling than a property unique to a particular tea. The same tea drunk in a heated room in winter feels completely different from the same tea cold-brewed in summer. Tea lovers use it to describe cha qi, and you can enjoy it as a turn of phrase, but there's no need to regard it as a standard for judging good tea.

Is Cha Qi Related to Caffeine?

Partly. Caffeine makes up roughly 2–5% of tea's dry weight, and Yunnan large-leaf varieties usually fall in the middle-to-upper part of that range, with more tender buds and leaves containing more. Caffeine brings a sense of alertness and is also one source of bitterness in tea, so strong, bitter teas rich in substance tend to be described as having strong cha qi.

But cha qi isn't exactly caffeine. What tea lovers call cha qi also includes the strength in the mouth, the intensity of huigan and shengjin, and the thickness of the liquor, which relate to tea polyphenols, amino acids, and total soluble solids. Ripe tea's caffeine content isn't significantly reduced by fermentation, yet ripe tea is usually described as having gentler cha qi, showing that cha qi is an impression built from many combined sensations. Details on caffeine are in Caffeine in Pu'er and Caffeine and When to Drink Tea During the Day.

What Affects Cha Qi?

• Raw material: Tea lovers generally believe that raw material from older trees, rich in substance, has more cha qi.
• Region: Different mountains have different styles; some are known for power, others win with gentleness.
• Age: Young raw tea has direct strength; after years of storage it becomes more restrained and lingering.
• Brewing: More tea and longer steeping naturally give more strength; brew the same tea lighter, and its cha qi becomes lighter too.

Is Cha Qi Mysticism?

You can call it subjective, but there's no need to call it mystical. Cha qi is a shared language among a group of people for "strength" and "physical sensation," just as coffee drinkers say a coffee "has a kick" and drinkers say a liquor "has punch." It has no unified definition, and everyone's constitution, condition that day, and amount drunk all affect how they feel it.

Practical suggestions:

1. Think of cha qi as a description, not a scoring standard.
2. When comparing the cha qi of two teas, keep the leaf amount and steeping time the same.
3. Pay attention to how you feel while drinking; if drinking too much or too strong makes you feel jittery or uncomfortable, stop for a while, eat something, and have some plain water.
4. There's no need to chase "the stronger the cha qi, the better"; the tea that suits you is the good tea.

For other tea-world slang, read Tea Slang: Domineering, Layers, Empty Mouth, Dissolving, and Base.

FAQ

What is cha qi? How tea lovers describe a tea's overall strength and how they feel after drinking it, including the impact and persistence of the taste and subjective sensations such as feeling warm and alert afterward.

What does strong cha qi feel like? Tea lovers often describe a powerful entry, the body warming after a few cups, light sweating, and sharper focus; the experience varies from person to person.

Is cha qi related to caffeine? Partly. Caffeine makes up about 2–5% of tea's dry weight, but cha qi also includes the thickness of the liquor and the intensity of huigan, so it isn't exactly caffeine.

Why do some people say it makes them sweat? It's mostly a feeling produced by a mix of circumstances, such as drinking hot tea continuously, strong tea, and a warm environment. It's a tea lover's description, not a standard for judging good tea.