About Our Center
For more than ten years, our center, Tea Sage Hut, in Miao Li, Taiwan, hosted thousands of visitors and volunteers from around the world who came to learn about tea and meditation. We operated Tea Sage Hut on a donation basis, meaning that the courses were free. There was a donation box, but no one ever demanded you give, nor checked who gave or how much. Wu De always says, “We don’t want you to give—we want you to want to give!” In other words, only give if you really want to pass the experience you had at the center on to future guests, just as your course was paid for by previous tea lovers. We don’t want donations given out of obligation, but in the spirit of tea—money shared freely and lovingly, as the tea we served in the course was.
We offered hundreds of ten-day “Introduction to Cha Dao” courses at Tea Sage Hut before its doors were closed in 2019. Now we are enthusiastic to build a bigger, better and more permanent tea center, which we call “Light Meets Life.” This new center will offer a much greater variety of courses on tea and meditation. It will also be a working tea farm with old-growth, ecological tea gardens for guests to work and live in during their stay, getting hands-on experience in tea processing as well as understanding the ecology and nature of sustainably-stewarded tea trees. We are currently working on buying land and building Light Meets Life. To stay up to date or contribute to this beautiful project, visit Light Meets Life.
If you haven’t yet visited our center, we hope that you will one day, and that you too will come to feel and understand, as hundreds of visitors have, that this is not our center we are building, but rather yours. Join us in creating the world’s best and brightest tea farm and center!
Shen Su
My name is Shen Su. I came across this tea community back in 2012 and have been involved ever since. These last seven years working here at the Hut have certainly been the adventure of a lifetime! I'm endlessly grateful that the opportunity presented itself. I manage the office here, running all the shipping of Global Tea Hut and your tea/teaware orders. If you email about a tea order, you will be chatting with me. Should you find yourself eastward-bound in the future, it would be an honor to share tea with you at Light Meets Life. In the meantime, I'll raise a bowl to our friendship.
Joyce
My name is Joyce. I help with translations for Global Tea Hut magazine, liaison with local companies and help to look for a property for our new Center, Light Meets Life. In my spare time, I teach piano and spend time drinking tea outdoors.
Tinghua
My name is Tinghua. I'm a language buff, a music lover and a home cook. I joined Global Tea Hut in 2020 and help with orders, subscriptions and making sure we have enough inventory for your orders. The best part of working here is that I can dig into the tea world and learn from it. My favorite tea is Ruby Red. Its beautiful fragrance and sweet flavor always blow me away. I also like to add it to my baking. I'm very into music, especially R&B and folk and love to relax with a great tune.
Shinni
My name is Shinni. I have been working with Global Tea Hut for over six years now. I help in a lot of ways to ensure things flow smoothly. I mainly help by working with local companies to source supplies for shipping Global Tea Hut each month along with sending out your tea and teaware orders.
Zhi Xuan
I’m Zhi Xuan. I joined this Global Tea Hut in late 2021. I help with all of the accounting here. Of course, many think of this as the most boring job, but it is also one of the most important. I keep all your donations in order, and organize all the finances down to the penny so that we can build Light Meets Life. In my spare time, I enjoy drinking tea and spending time with my family. Tea helps bind us together. I look forward to meeting you in Taiwan one day and sharing tea together!
Lin
My name is Lin. I joined Global Tea Hut in 2017. The shared love for tea has fostered an atmosphere that is cosy and warm, and I am truly grateful to be a part of it. I am responsible for picking and packing orders. I hope that the packages we deliver can bring joy to your tea experience and enrich your lives!
Ivy
My name is Ivy. I've been a part of Global Tea Hut team for five years and I've learned so much about tea here! My main role is bagging tea, packing the orders and crafting handmade items like the handle wraps for kettles. To bring joy to our customer's shopping experience, I'm always working on packing everything carefully and creating beautiful packages. When I'm not at work, I enjoy reading or exploring homeware stores. These little passions of mine often spark brilliant packaging ideas.
Sascha
My name is Sascha. I joined Global Tea Hut as a photographer in mid-2023. I grew up in a family that drank tea every day, and now I am trying to learn more about it and dive deeper into the world of tea. When I am not taking pictures, I am practicing and learning more about tea. In some ways, tea and photography are similar. Both require attention to detail, patience, and a calm mind to achieve the most beautiful results. I hope that one day we can “make friends through tea,” and I can take a picture of you enjoying a bowl of tea.
Connor
My name is Connor. I am from the mountains of Australia and have been here at the Center on and off for a number of years. I manage the Global Tea Hut and Tea Dyed Art websites, take care of emails and subscriptions, along with spending time in the kitchen cooking or fermenting and outside gardening or taking care of our turtles and koi fish. I look forward to connecting with all of you and sharing tea one day at Light Meets Life! Let me know if you have any suggestions for our websites!
Wu De
My name is Wu De and I love tea. I love everything about it, from the history to the science, the art to the spirit. Our work is to share tea that inspires a love for Nature, to promote tea farmers that are working sustainably in harmony with their environments and to explore the vast and rich world of tea lore through writing, translating, filming courses and building spaces for in person learning. I am also inspired by tea’s ability to be a useful part of self-cultivation and to change lives and open hearts. When our hearts are open, we find a common, loving space where listening is primary and our disputes with one another dissolve. Through tea, we make friends—lasting friendships with our selves, with others and with Nature. At Global Tea Hut, I work on the magazine as an editor and do my best to keep learning and sharing what I learn through courses, online and in person. I hope we can drink some tea together one day soon.