Zhou Xiang

Zhou Xiang grew up among the tea gardens of Hunan, where the sharp, verdant scent of early-spring picking has been a constant since childhood. Over two decades of dedicated study — first under family elders, later through formal apprenticeships with masters in Anhua and Yiyang — shaped him into one of the community’s clearest voices on China’s green, black, and yellow teas.

His expertise settles most naturally on the famed Lóngjǐng (龙井) of Zhejiang and the ethereal Jūnshān Yínzhēn (君山银针) from the misty island in Dongting Lake, but he is just as fluent in the broader spectrum of Hunan’s own hóng chá (red tea) classics. At tea.school, Zhou Xiang leads periodic workshops that unpack the processing nuances behind these delicate styles — the gentle kill-green that preserves Lóngjǐng’s chestnut sweetness, the patient “yellowing” that gives Jūnshān Yínzhēn its soft, mellow body. Students find his sessions neither hurried nor promotional; they are slow, technical, and built around comparative tasting flights he assembles from small seasonal batches.

Off the classroom floor, Zhou Xiang has become the de facto moderator for the community’s ongoing conversations around cupping methodology. In the tea.community thread “Cupping protocol — ISO vs gongfu-led,” he invited practitioners from both analytical and traditional circles to examine variables like leaf-to-water ratio, steeping time, and vessel geometry without falling into dogma. That even-handed, data-informed approach — always acknowledging that the best protocol is one that teaches the palate something true — has made him a trusted reference point. He often points newer drinkers to the tea.equipment library for cupping sets, advocating a single standardised setup as the first step toward meaningful comparison.

Though he currently devotes more time to teaching and writing than to hosting public events, Zhou Xiang’s presence on the forums and his long-running series of tasting notes — archived at tea.degree — continue to shape how the wider Teamotea network tastes, discusses, and appreciates China’s most subtle tea categories.