Meet Ken Cohen of Cloud Forest Tea

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ken Cohen.

Ken, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
From 1973 to 1977 I was privileged to be a weekly private student of one of the great tea masters of our time, Milly Johnstone (1900-1988). Milly had mastered the precise choreography of Japanese Tea Ceremony yet was free within it. She devised ingenious teaching methods and used humor, subtlety, and her contagious presence to tease me out of mental ruts. Freed from memory and expectation, the whole world was only Tea.

Tea became a cup of awareness, a cup of understanding. It is just a cup of tea, and it is not tea at all, for the host, guest, and tea merge into one experience, like a conductor, orchestra and an entranced audience. Not long thereafter I met my principle teacher in Taoism, Dr. Huang Gengshi, who expanded my knowledge to include the Chinese Art of Tea, not so much a ceremony as a way of using delicious and fragrant tea to open the senses to beauty in the everyday.

My tea journey has continued over the years as I met tea farmers, merchants, and connoisseurs in both North America and Asia. Now, thanks to my proficiency in the Chinese language and the respect I have among my Chinese colleagues, I am able to import and sell (by mail order) fine, hand-picked tea at exceptional discounts. I also offer tea tastings for individuals, small and large groups, libraries, cultural organizations, and museums.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The main struggle was finding teas that met my very high standards for purity, beauty, exceptional taste and aroma. And it took time to meet farmers, tea masters, and other business partners who were truly committed to the environment, business integrity, and fair pricing. To sell truly great teas requires extraordinary discernment. All because a tea is expensive or famous does not mean it is great; all, because a tea is cheap, does not mean it is poor. I have a highly refined palate and will not sell any tea that I do not love.

Also, because I have practiced and taught Tai Chi and Qigong for fifty years, I can sense the qi, the life force of the tea, and share my insights with customers. Notice how the qi of this tea enters the palate and then spreads through the entire body. Notice how the aroma brings you to a mountain meadow with hints of wildflowers and pine forests. Is the tea grounding? Is it expansive? It takes patience to master the art of tea and to be of real service to customers. There are no short-cuts.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Cloud Forest Tea story. Tell us more about the business.
I am primarily a health and cultural educator who also imports and sells fine Chinese tea. No herbal infusions-such as peppermint, chamomile, and so on-only camellia sinensis. Whether white, green, oolong or black, it is all the same plant, though the quality and taste vary to an extraordinary degree depending on where tea is grown and how the leaves are picked and processed.

As an educator, I offer individual and small group tea tastings to learn about tea and tea culture, to awaken the senses, and as a wonderful way to celebrate a special event. It also allows you to sample great artisan teas without spending much money ($25 each for a three-person, one-hour tea session). On my website, you can order single estate and wild harvested hand-picked teas. I have Puerh teas (related to black tea) from 500-year-old tea trees that grow wild in the high mountains bordering Tibet. And I have green tea from a small tea garden behind a tranquil Buddhist monastery. When you receive the tea, you also receive detailed instructions about storage and preparation.

One of the things that sets Cloud Forest Tea apart is that we are a very small “mom and pop” business operating from a home office. No big storefront or overhead to raise prices. My knowledge of Chinese language and culture and the fact that I have published works in both English and Chinese has resulted in lasting tea friendships and access to teas that are hard to find even in China!

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
It’s something more than luck. In Chinese, we speak about yuan fen, which I translate “karmic affinity,” mysterious synchronicities that seem as though they were meant to be. This has happened a lot in my life. I visit a Chinese tea house and taste an exquisite tea with an earthy, peaty taste and aroma, a single malt scotch of teas. I notice the wrapping on the tea package has the name of the famous tea master from Yunnan Province who selected the leaves and supervised their processing.

Two weeks later a tea friend in Yunnan sends me a gift of tea made by this same master with an offer of wholesale pricing. Or, while in Taiwan, I meet an esteemed elder tea master who, along with her daughters, grows tea on Taiwan’s highest mountain. There is a purity and clarity to her tea that brings one to the same quiet yet alert state of mind as meditation. Though I had never met this master before, we share the same love of tea, poetry, and life– old friends at first sight!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.qigonghealing.com/cloud-forest-tea
• Phone: 720-985-6445
• Email: info@qigonghealing.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CloudForestTea/

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