When Tea Becomes Presence: A Conversation with Shao & Enan of Satotea

Introduction

After exchanging several text messages and having a longer conversation via video call, we were given the opportunity to sit down with Lorela from Wanderlustea. The original intent was to meet for an interview but that felt like an afterthought as soon as we sat down in our tea room in Taitung. Rather than being one-directional, the conversation organically grew into a lively exchange of experiences, thoughts, concerns and hopes.

We got to know Lorela as a kind, focused, ambitious and curious being, full of energy and ideas. What stands out to me personally is her bravery to carve her own path with her venture Wanderlustea.

We once again thank you, Lorela, for visiting and spending time with us.

And now, please enjoy Lorela's interview with Shao and me:

Interview

Lorela: Before Satotea became a meditation space, it was only a very curated and high-quality tea brand. What made you realise that selling tea alone was no longer enough?

Many tea businesses speak about quality leaves or sourcing, but Satotea seems to have shifted its focus towards something much deeper. What happened along your own journey that transformed tea from a product into a practice and experience?

Enan: When we started out selling tea online, we very quickly realised that it's a lot of logistics. A lot of back-office work, a lot of social media content creation, which was challenging and interesting to learn in the beginning, but this is not what we really wanted to do.

We were missing the part where we directly interact with people, where we can learn from others and share with others what we have learned as our contribution to a social network. So the direct social exchange is the part that was missing. Things have changed entirely once we understood tea as a vessel to foster those social connections and to give back. Especially in today's highly digitalised world, real human connection is more important than ever.

Shao: In the beginning, we simply wanted to build a tea brand. But once we actually started living it out, we slowly realised that some parts of it we genuinely loved, and other parts were just a template handed down by society. So this journey became a constant process of asking ourselves what really mattered to us. Eventually, our focus naturally shifted toward tea meditation and teaching. If a guest or student likes the tea and wants to buy some, we offer whatever private stock or special tea we happen to have on hand at the time.

Lorela: Shao, your personal story begins with a difficult period in Berlin, when a single cup of Taiwanese tea awakened something you felt had disappeared. Looking back today, do you think it was the tea itself—or the permission it gave you to finally listen to yourself?

Shao: In Buddhism, there is the idea of causes and conditions coming together. A seed already exists, but it does not sprout until it has the right soil, water, sunlight, and everything it needs. When all those conditions finally meet, it naturally begins to grow. Everything I'd accumulated and let settle in life converged in that instant, and that's why drinking that particular cup stirred up such a deep sense of emotion and insight.

Lorela: You both come from different cultural backgrounds—Germany and Taiwan—and met while living in Berlin. How has this intersection between East and West shaped the philosophy of Satotea? Has living between cultures changed the way you understand tea and the role it can play in people's lives?

Enan: I think we have learned to take the best of two worlds. Buddhist, Taoist and Tai Chi-Chuan influence is clearly visible in what we do. At the same time, the business component needs structure. That is something we took from the Western world. There's also a lot of other philosophical influence flowing into our work. But at the end of the day, East or West, Buddhism or ancient Greek teachings - they are universal, just wrapped in different language.

It's always about the Dao, Love, Truth, Nature, God - an infinite number of words that all mean the same. I learned that it doesn't matter where someone comes from. It doesn't matter what background they have.

Tea doesn't care; tea doesn't need a story, and neither should we. Basically, it's about sitting down and experiencing whatever you want to experience.

Tea (meditation) gives you freedom. It doesn't care about any of the identity we attach to it.

Shao: Meeting each other, getting married, and sharing seven years of life slowly shaped what Satotea has become today, a path of continually seeing through and breaking down the masks and limitations in our lives.

These inner works definitely changed the way I saw tea itself. If you regard tea as something alive, the way you'd regard a person, you meet it with a sense of equality. Instead of thinking "how can I brew this to get a certain flavour," you listen. You listen to the character of the tea, to what it's trying to say. You shift from the role of one who dominates and controls, to a humble one who surrenders and follows. Once that happens, the whole way you see things changes completely. That shift is astonishing.

Day after day of being with tea this way, it can help us turn our lives around, bringing us back to wholeness, to compassion.

Lorela: During our conversation, we spoke about how many people in the West are constantly searching—for happiness, purpose, productivity, or the next experience. Yet tea meditation seems to invite the opposite: to stop searching altogether. Why do you think this message feels so difficult—and at the same time so necessary—in today's world?

Enan: The world today does not encourage simplicity. It's all about complexity, setting goals, getting stuff done, achievements. It's all about identity. And if you don't play that game, then you're perceived as odd, as not really part of society, and life can become uncomfortable quite fast. So letting go of your average life blueprint is actually very, very hard work that you have to engage in daily. Without putting in the effort, silence, letting go, change - they all remain just words. So yes, no search is needed; at the same time, an open mind and the willingness to engage with whatever you are facing are very important.

Shao: What we want to share is the path of turning inward. In a tea meditation ceremony, what actually matters is tasting, for yourself and firsthand, that in this very moment everything is already simple and complete. Once you've tasted that, you have a chance to break free from the habitual pattern of always seeking outward. At the same time, real change doesn't come from one experience. It comes from an ongoing, deliberate cultivation of inner stillness.

Lorela: Tea is at the heart of everything you do, yet the teas you choose are quite unlike those found in most speciality tea shops. Many come from old wild tea trees planted during the Japanese colonial period and are produced in very small quantities with as little human intervention as possible. What is it about these teas that resonates so deeply with your philosophy of presence? What qualities are you looking for when selecting the teas you share at Satotea?

Enan: The teas we select are a mirror of the idea of "letting go".

It's exactly about trusting nature to do her part and not interfering and not believing that we as humans can or should improve things. It's not our job to make things better. The stuff that grows, it grows because it's perfect. The approach to do as little as possible is exactly that. It's a reflection of letting go and trusting and appreciating this and showing gratitude and then sharing this with others and teaching them through tea to hopefully not just change the way they drink tea, but offer them a perspective that changes the way they live their life if they wish so: Stepping back, contemplating life, seeing the big picture and connecting the dots. It's all related.

Shao: My own journey with tea began with ordinary tea, then speciality tea, and eventually the tea I choose to share today. To me, speciality tea is still very much shaped by commercial values. It might come from a famous mountain, a well-known tea master, or a renowned growing region, which is why it carries a high price — and yes, the quality can genuinely be refined.

But as I kept exploring and practising tea meditation, I started to feel that what truly matters about tea isn't just the flavour on your tongue. It's whether it can move your entire body and mind.

That feeling comes down to whether the tea actually grew in a natural environment. Natural tea absorbs the life force of the mountains, soil, sunlight, air, and water. It represents nature itself. Of course, the tea I choose still needs precision in how it's processed and in every detail of its quality, and the people who grow and make it need genuine, good-hearted intentions.

When all of that comes together, you are drinking in the concentrated essence of many lives, gathered as one. It brings not just pleasure but a kind of cleansing, a release, a sense of resonance with nature, and a clearer state of mind.

That's the tea I want to share.

Lorela: You work closely with tea masters who have dedicated their lives to preserving traditional ways of cultivating and processing tea. In a world that constantly seeks optimisation, they seem to trust time and nature instead. What have these producers taught you—not only about tea, but also about patience, craftsmanship and life?

Enan: Being humble, generous, kind and accepting.

Shao: There's a mentor close to me who taught me something really important: simplicity. The human mind is always so complicated, always analysing, always explaining things. But out in the mountains, sometimes just standing quietly, listening, trying to become part of that land, is already enough. Through tea, I hope to pass along that same simplicity.

At the same time, he also showed me that the purity and naturalness that seem so simple are, in fact, a quality that takes enormous effort and time to uphold. It takes dedication and a steadfast heart, walking it out honestly, day after day.

Simple tea comes from what is anything but simple. That's a quality I keep trying to bring into my own life.

Lorela: Many tea professionals judge a tea by its cultivar, oxidation level, aroma or complexity. At Satotea, however, it feels as though the first question is different: How does this tea make you feel? Has your relationship with meditation changed the way you evaluate and select teas? And what qualities are you looking for beyond flavour alone?

Enan: I have never bothered to develop a strong technical understanding of tea, but when I drink a new tea, it has to speak to me; it has to tell me a story; it has to have something. I would always prefer tea that has that special something, but is technically not on the highest level over tea that is technically perfect, but lacks soul and character. Without the right character (of the tea maker, the environment and every other part), tea is just a commodity and brewing tea is nothing more than an exchange of money vs product.

Shao: Meditation indeed helps a lot in shifting perspectives. As I mentioned earlier, getting to know tea is a bit like getting to know a person. You wouldn't stop at their height, nationality, education, or job title, the surface facts. You'd want to know how they think, what they've been through, the parts of them that are hard to put into words. Once you have that kind of perspective, tea becomes a vessel full of life. And in the process of understanding tea, your own life comes alive too.

Lorela: Today, Satotea offers much more than exceptional Taiwanese teas. Through tea meditation coaching, ceremonies and immersive workshops, you're sharing a practice rather than simply a product.

What happens during a tea meditation coaching session, and what do you hope participants take with them long after the last cup has been poured? More broadly, how do you envision tea meditation becoming part of someone's everyday life, rather than remaining a beautiful experience they only associate with Satotea?

Enan: There's the work of bread, and there's the work of life. I wish that we can contribute to inspiring people to shift their focus from one to the other. That they leave our tea room or a video call inspired by the experience to expand on it, to put effort into the work of life; because that is where I believe we are truly home. This work is what makes us feel at ease and peaceful. This focus is where our tension resolves and where we can breathe.

Shao: For a tea meditation ceremony, what I hope people leave with is a genuine sense of calmness and a touch of the strength that comes from nature. Once they remember that feeling and carry it back into daily life, they might start to notice that things aren't always one way.

For a tea meditation coaching session, what I hope to offer is a method of meditation, one they can keep practising on their own, exploring themselves and cultivating inner stillness over time.

Its greatest impact is that it slowly opens their hearts, making it easier for them to step beyond old patterns and welcome change.

Lorela: One of the things that stayed with me after visiting Satotea was the idea that tea can become a mirror. When someone sits down to drink tea in silence, what do you hope they begin to notice—not about the tea, but about themselves?

Enan: I hope that people feel that everything is okay, that they're okay, that the world is okay. That there's nothing they have to do, think or feel; that they don't have to be a certain way. Through this inner calm - not out of a sense of urgency which society forces on us - people can then develop their thought process and go through life with a very different perception.

Shao: Simply seeing is already a process of opening and release. So if someone can just notice a thought, or an emotion, or some discomfort in their own body, that awareness is already part of seeing oneself, of coming to know oneself. As those moments gradually build up, you begin to understand yourself with clarity. It is actually what truly settles us.

Lorela: If someone left Satotea remembering only one thing—not a flavour, not a tea, but a feeling—what would you hope they carry back into their everyday life?

Enan: Peace.

Shao: Clarity, and inner stillness.

Note: This is an unedited republication of the interview between Lorela from Wanderlustea and Shao and Enan, founders of satotea. The interview took place on April 15th 2026 in our tea room in Taitung. In addition to the republication, the original adds an editorial introcudction by Lorela. It can be found here.