Along with coffee and zero-calorie energy drinks, tea has now become a cherished beverage on campus. The Tea Club — founded in 2023 by Mengbo “Ben” Guan and Menghan “Rex” Jiang — attracts tea aficionados and beginners alike. More than hosting a scheduled time and place to sample different teas, Tea Club aims to foster connections among students from all Hopkins campuses united by a shared appreciation for advanced tea culture.
Tea Club was born from Guan’s gap year in China in 2020. Opting out of online classes amidst the pandemic, Guan chose to study tea professionally, learning how to evaluate the quality and aromas of a variety of teas, as well as the social and cultural value of tea.
“People in China use tea as a starting point to start conversations, like friends or even businesses,” he noted in an interview with The News-Letter.
By bringing his love for tea to Hopkins, Guan sought to introduce his peers to Asian culture and create what he fondly describes as a “legalized wine club” for undergraduate students to socialize. Connecting with Jiang through WeChat in 2022, Guan and Jiang bonded over their shared interests, and their shared passion for tea quickly blossomed into a collaborative venture.
Cross-campus connections
As Computer Music majors, the duo envisioned Tea Club bridging both the Peabody Institute and Homewood campus. However, establishing such a cross-campus organization was met with administrative difficulties.
"When I first went to the [Registered Student Organizations] people at Peabody, they told me the reason that Peabody students don't want a cross-campus club is because they want to keep their own identity. And then I asked her, is this a fact? Or just because nobody has ever done that?" Guan said.
Navigating bureaucratic hurdles — including dual constitutions, separate campus accounts and redundant officer training — it took a year to officially launch Tea Club. For Gwen Bergendahl, a sophomore Peabody BFA Dance student, Tea Club offers a rare opportunity to connect beyond her campus.
“It's hard to be a part of the social community over here [at Homewood], unless you're rushing in a sorority or a [fraternity], or making an effort to take a lot of classes over here,” she says in an interview with The News-Letter. “Tea Club just felt special immediately to me. I knew I wanted to keep coming back.”
General Body Meetings alternate weekly between campuses, encouraging students to make the 15-minute JHMI trip. To assist with navigation, Guan and the executive board even created direction videos for Homewood Campus students visiting Peabody, humorously noting the reversal of typical campus confusion.
"[The Mid-Autumn tea party event] was the [first] time when I saw something like 20 Homewood students trying to find directions in Peabody, where that happens to Peabody students [at Homewood Campus] daily,” Guan remarked.
Beyond the brew
More than just an interest in tea, Tea Club members bring a variety of skills they contribute to enhance club events. The club’s annual Tea Formal — which occurred earlier this month on Feb. 2 — is a two-hour-long celebration of club members who achieve tea ceremony certification after a semester of training. Hosted in the George Peabody Library, previous events featured roundtable discussions with fellow members, officers and guests like President Ronald J. Daniels and Vice Provost Rachelle Hernandez.
Cultural reflections
To many in the Tea Club, tea is deeply intertwined in ethnic and cultural identity. For Guan, opening a box of tea reminds him of home and allows one to indulge in the practices surrounding tea preparation, such as incense burning and socialization. Jiang also finds the tea ceremony meditative.
“I see the tea ceremony as a metaphor of meditation and self-reflection. Sitting on the tea table as a brewer always makes me tranquil, focused on doing one thing at a time,” Jiang contemplated in The News-Letter.
For sophomore Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering major Alfred Orellano-Pajulio, a Tea Club officer, learning about tea provided a chance to engage with his heritage and Filipino history.
“I know tea culture started in Vietnam about 4,000 years ago and then in the Philippines shortly after. It’s close to my heart personally, because of colonization, especially what happened with Spain. What ended up happening is that there became a shift away from tea, specifically in the Philippines, [towards] coffee or other Western types of drinks and food as well. And so, it took away a little bit of the [tea] culture,” Orellano-Pajulio said. “Having been in the Tea Club more, it reintroduced me to a lot more of the things that were traditional for [Filipinos] before colonialism.”
Homewood Campus freshman Lia Carroll participated in the Tea Club-adjacent trip to China over intersession. The group’s 14-day stay was spent at Zhejiang University at the tea science department is heavily involved in research. Carroll found that complete immersion into authentic tea culture was transformative and academic as well.
Carroll, like many others on the same trip, felt that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, as all participants gained a deep understanding of tea within Chinese culture.
“I would sit down, things would appear in front of me, and then I would learn about it. It was amazing.” she described in and interview with The News-Letter.
Challenge and triumph
Despite the club comprising about many members from all nine Hopkins campuses, their contributions in putting on major events, as well as pioneering cross-campus nature, Tea Club struggles with funding. Guam stated that when he was discussing funding options, he was told that the club should hold a donut fundraiser, an activity he felt failed to honor the mission and purpose of the club.
One might conclude that their active presence on two campuses means double the budget, but talking to Tea Club treasurer Zizhan “Max” Wu — a second-year Peabody graduate student — it is definitely not the case.
“Sometimes one campus thinks the budget should be another campus giving [funding] to us and sometimes it's the other way. Ends up, we don't have a lot of funding. We had a budget of what, $400 this year?” he said in and interview with The News-Letter.
Robinson Bui, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering freshman and member of Tea Club, summed the problem up humorously in an interview with The News-Letter.
“It's a “go ask your mom, go ask your dad” type of situation,” he said.
Over gaiwans of yellow, Oolong, and Pu’er tea, through curiosity, exploration, and friendship, Tea Club continues to inspire connection and elevate the Blue Jay experience.
