Qi-charged Tea and Emitting Qi into Substances

A specialty of the style of classical Chinese medicine passed down within the Gengmenpai lineage is their use of special pills (dan 丹) that have gone through a special process in which an adept practitioner emits their own qi and injects it into the medicine to greatly enhance the medicinal effect. I have no doubt that it was this extra touch given to the medicine that caused me to have the experience that I did the first time I took several of their signature huaxuedan (化血丹) at once years ago.

What is interesting, is that it was explained (and in some cases demo’d) to us how qi can be emitted into various substances, resulting in a variety of effects.

Depending on the substance, the taste will change in a certain way when qi is emitted into it. Water and air (or likely the water in air) will get sweeter, and tea might get more bitter.

Different substances can hold qi for different lengths of time. Water was given as an example on the lower end as it could not hold qi for very long – just a few days at most.

Tea was given as an example of something in the middle range. If qi is emitted into dry tea leaves, those tea leaves could hold the qi for a month or so, or even two to three months if sealed and refrigerated or frozen.

Above that, on the higher end, would be various medicinal herbs which could hold the qi emitted into them for significantly longer periods.

The substance that we were told can hold qi for the longest time, supposedly for indefinitely long periods, was said to be high-quality jade. And so it was explained that this was a lesser-known reason why jade holds such an important place in Chinese culture. For this reason, it became a thing to bring pieces of jade (such as jade jewelry) to masters who could emit qi and “charge” the jade with their qi, as it was said that the jade would hold their qi within it and could serve as a source of zhengqi 正气 that could ward off evil qi 邪气 (associated with pathological environmental influences, evil ghosts/entities, etc).

One thing that I miss from those visits to Master Jiang Feng in Anhui was that he would often offer us the opportunity to purchase some high-quality Taiping Houkui tea from one of his tea sources–he himself was a bit of a tea connoisseur and we were told that he and his master, the monk Xuan Kong, both particularly liked Taiping Houkui tea 太平猴魁茶. We could buy a tin tea leaves that he had first emitted qi into before the bag inside the tin was sealed, effectively charging the tea up with some of his qi. The tea could then be drunk later as a supplement to practice for a month or two (if kept in the refridgerator). Of course, the effect was much more mild than taking something like a qi pill (liangong dan 炼功丹) made from high-end herbs and injected with qi, but it was still something that could boost our practice a bit and also added to the excellent chaqi 茶气 (qi of tea) of a tea that often makes “top 10” lists in China.

On some rare occasions, Master Jiang also performed a demo in which he boosted people who had no prior training experience to the point where they temporarily had enough qi to perform his signature demo of causing small pieces of paper to fly up off the desk by pushing qi out through his hand and then sucking it back into the hand. In other similar demos, to boost them, he emitted this qi directly into their dantian.

However, for this qi-charged tea demo, the participants only had acupuncture points opened and sealed, but the qi needed to perform the demo was not emitted directly into them. Instead, the qi was transferred into the cup of tea first before they drank it. This was to show how a substance (in this case the tea liquor) could hold the qi temporarily.