Exhibition: Wingchi Ip and the Art of Tea
November 15-December 15 in the Nelson Gallery

This exhibition features the calligraphy and materials relating to tea produced by internationally recognized artist and Tea Master, Wingchi Ip of Hong Kong.

Exhibiton review in the California Aggie: The Nelson Gallery presents “The Art of Tea”

Tea Tasting and Demonstration with Tea Master Wingchi Ip
November 21, 3:10-5:00 pm in the Robert Mondavi Institute Sensory Theater

This demonstration of tea brewing and tasting, is led by Tea Master Wingchi Ip. The audience will be invited to view and ask questions as students from UC Davis’s first-ever seminar focused on tea, The Impact of Tea on Visual and Material Culture (AHI 190f/290), learn about tea tasting and sensory issues.

Colloquium: The Art of Tea
November 22, 3:00-5:00 pm in the Nelson Gallery
Speakers: Wingchi Ip and Dr. Steven D. Owyoung

Wingchi Ip, “The Way(s) of Drinking Tea” will explain how to select, brew, and taste teas, as well as throw light on the differences between the primary types of Chinese teas on the market: green, fermented, semi-fermented, and white teas.

Wingchi Ip is a Tea Master, tea scholar, artist, Director of Lock Cha Tea Shop, as well as an tea exporter, manufacturer, and retailer from Hong Kong, and the former Head of the Fujian Tea Research Institute, Fu’an, China.

Dr. Steven D. Owyoung, “Drinking from the Dragon’s Well: An Introduction to the Tea Cultures of China, Korea, and Japan” offers an hour-long presentation of the historical figures and events that inspired the evolution of tea from a tonic and beverage into a philosophical and spiritual pursuit.  Dr. Owyoung reveals the influence of continental China – the major movements in tea – on peninsular Korea and the islands of Japan, highlighting the distinctive practices developed by each civilization.  His richly illustrated lecture closely examines the aesthetic of tea and its impact on literary, monastic, and material culture from poetry and meditation to utensils and architecture.

Dr. Owyoung was a curator of Asian arts at the Fogg Art Museum and the Saint Louis Art Museum during a scholarly career spanning thirty-five years.  Now retired, he writes on the history of tea – East and West – and is completing an introduction and translation of the Chajing 茶經, the Book of Tea by the Tang dynasty scholar Lu Yü.  Owyoung periodically publishes essays on the websites Cha Dao and Tsiosophy.

Sponsored by the Department of Art and Art History, East Asian Studies, the Davis Humanities Institute, UC Davis Confucius Institute, Alan Templeton and Darrell Corti.