Chen Hui Yi

Chen Hui Yi joined Teamotea in 2017 after eleven years sourcing white tea in Fúdǐng and Zhènghé, and she now leads the morning practice cohort at tea.yoga. Her work sits at a quiet intersection — the first cup of the day, the first breath of a sūrya namaskāra sequence, and the long, patient teas that suit both.

She is best known across the community for her readings of aged whites. The 2014 Shòu Méi (寿眉) cake she helped select for the cohort library now opens with a stewed-pear note that students recognise within two infusions. Her annual Bái Háo Yín Zhēn (白毫银针) tasting — held each April when the new buds arrive from Tàimǔ Shān — has become the unofficial start of the morning programme. She also champions Yuè Guāng Bái (月光白), the Yúnnán moonlight white, as a sattvic pairing for slow yin sessions, and she keeps a small rotation of Bái Mǔ Dān (白牡丹) from a single 38-year-old garden in Diǎntóu village.

For prāṇāyāma mornings she prefers Zhèjiāng-grown yellows — particularly Mò Gān Huáng Yá (莫干黄芽) — for their clarity without the edge of a green. Students who follow her recommendations on the cohort thread Tea before or after asana — what people actually do will recognise her standard answer: a single thin cup of yellow tea forty minutes before practice, water during, aged white in the long rest after śavāsana.

Chen Hui Yi hosts the Yin + tea evening — online cohort intro session, a ninety-minute Zoom gathering held on the new moon of each month. The session opens with a 2018 Shòu Méi brewed in a gàiwǎn on camera, moves through three rounds of paced breathing, and closes with questions from new members. Recordings are archived on tea.community for cohort participants, and her tasting notes feed into the seasonal guides at tea.school.

Outside the morning cohort she teaches the white tea module of the senior certification track at tea.degree, mentors two of the younger sourcing scouts at puerh.app, and curates the aged-white shelf at shop.thetea.app. She lives in Guǎngzhōu, practises Ashtanga at a small studio in Yuèxiù district, and travels north to Fúdǐng three times a year for the spring, summer, and autumn pickings.

If you are new to the morning cohort, her gentlest entry point is a 5g cup of Bái Mǔ Dān before your first standing pose — nothing more elaborate than that.