From April 20 to 23, Tea Culture Week unfolded at Duke Kunshan University, bringing together over 200 students, faculty, and staff into the Library Tea Room and Performance Café Corridor.Across four evenings and through tea-related documentary, performances, dialogues, and hands-on activities,participants didn’t just learn about tea, but they experienced it through their senses, conversations, and everyday practices.
The event was initiated and designed by Lianyun Pang, with generous support from the Humanities Research Center (HRC), and additional support from the Institute for Global Higher Education (IGHE) and the Language and Culture Center (LCC).
Day 1. Awakening the Senses: Tea & Aroma
The week opened in the Library Tea Room with a documentary introducing tea’s varieties and cultural histories. Participants then moved from watching to sensing: comparing green, white, black, and oolong teas across two brews through guided aroma exploration. A blindfolded smelling activity turned perception into play, before the session closed with tea tasting. The focus to learning to notice before learning to explain.
Day 2. Tea, Taste, and Ritual
The second evening centered on tea ceremony and tasting. Through the slow and deliberate gestures of tea preparation, participants experienced the aesthetics of stillness and attentiveness embedded in tea practice. Tasting sessions further deepened this experience, allowing participants to appreciate the diversity of tea flavors while reflecting on the relationship between technique, environment, and perception.
Day 3. Beyond the Cup: Bubble Tea, Identity, and Culture
The third evening shifted from tradition to the present. A panel featured participants from different countries, including China, Pakistan, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, the United States, and so on. The discussion opened with familiar questions, such as favorite flavors, first encounters with bubble tea, but quickly moved deeper: “Can a drink be a cultural performance?”, “Does globalization dilute or expand meaning?”
The discussion drew on the origins of bubble tea and its transformation into a global industry. Participants reflected on how customization – sweetness, toppings, tea base – can express personal identity.This reflection became tangible as participants created their own bubble tea, translating abstract ideas into individual combinations.
Day 4 Tea Market: Explore & Experience
While the tea market ran throughout the week, the final evening brought it fully to life in the Performance Café Corridor. Passersby stopped to taste teas, explore cultural teadisplays, and create their own tea sachets, blending ingredients like rose, mint, and oolong by hand. The open format encouraged spontaneous participation, turning the event into a shared, evolving space rather than a fixed program.
From Event to Program: Extending the Experience
Building on the strong interest generated during the week, a follow-up Tea Culture Experience Program has been launched and is now open for voluntary registration. Designed as a structured series of sessions, the program extends the “experience–understanding–expression” pathway in a more sustained format, offering participants the opportunity to engage more deeply with tea knowledge, practice, and cultural meaning.
This transition from a short-term cultural event to a more continuous learning experience suggests a possible model for developing long-term, experience-based cultural programming on campus.
More than a themed series, Tea Culture Week explored how something as ordinary as tea can become a medium for attention, identity, and exchange.
