Tea Art Experience with Olivier Schneider: Listen to the Tea Leaves

Name: Tea Art Experience with Olivier Schneider: Listen to the Tea Leaves
Start: 2025-09-07T14:00:00+02:00
End: 2025-09-07T15:30:00+02:00
Location: Školská 32, 11000 Prague, Czech Republic

Schedule

Sun Sep 07 2025 at 02:00 pm to 03:30 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Školská 32, 11000 Prague, Czech Republic | Prague, PR

“Listen to the Tea Leaves” invites six people to experience a new form of tea—conceived as a form of artistic expression. The tea in question, extremely rare and not available commercially, has been crafted specifically for this occasion. Its production—from the plucking of fresh leaves on the tree—has taken several months and will be completed on the day of the performance itself. But beyond the tea leaf as an object, it is the entire way in which the tea enters into contact with the participants, and how it is perceived, that has been carefully reimagined—designed to offer a global, unique, and unforgettable experience.
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The tea leaf is a creation in becoming—an open canvas, allowing for the emergence of an infinity of aromas, flavors, sensations, and emotions. For thousands of years, this leaf has been endlessly reinterpreted through gestures and choices, renewed time and again through the combined creation of humans and nature—what we call tea. And yet, despite centuries of evolution and innovation, most teas produced today around the world—however exceptional or diverse—remain confined within established standards: formatted commercial shapes that are easily categorized, or historical “classics” that are continuously reproduced or cautiously reinterpreted.
Each spring, across the globe, tea leaves are shaped into green teas, black teas, puerh, dong ding, gyokuro, and so on. Year after year, producers strive to achieve the highest possible quality, perhaps with a touch of originality—but rarely do they question the form, the nature, or the very purpose of the tea itself.
Yet when freed from these standards, the tea leaf reveals an entirely different potential. By delving deeply into the sensory realm, the aromas, tastes, and sensations generated by the tea leaf possess a unique ability to awaken emotion and memory—transforming, in a quiet but profound way, the soul of the one who receives them. Approached from a new angle, tea becomes a particularly powerful medium—perhaps even more so than image or sound—for conveying and sharing a singular perception or emotion. That is why, after nearly 20 years of studying tea and working with traditional or “commercial” forms (with all the richness and creative possibility they offer), I now explore the potential of using the tea leaf, its transformation and preparation, in a completely different way—as a means of expressing and transmitting deeply personal perceptions and emotions.
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Entrance: 980 CZK / 40 EUR
Sessions starts: 14:00, 16:00
Tea session only for 6 guests, please book Your seat via email [email protected]
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OLIVIER SCHNEIDER studied art in Europe and began a career as an artist before falling in love with tea and moving to Asia. He has spent the past 20 years in the Golden Triangle studying tea — especially in Yunnan, where he lived for more than a decade, and in Thailand, where he now resides. Over these years, he has carried out numerous research programs on the teas of this region — in particular the most renowned, puerh — in countries such as Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar, as well as in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, which are all deeply connected to the history of puerh tea.
He has written numerous articles about tea and is currently working on a book about puerh that brings together decades of research. He also regularly teaches around the world on tea and tea culture, and works as an independent tea expert and sourcing partner for various tea houses. Olivier now lives in the mountains along the Thailand–Myanmar border, where he owns a centuries-old tea garden. There, he has established a private tea studio to continue his research, experiment with tea processing, and practice the subtle art of tea brewing.
In parallel, Olivier is developing a completely new and artistic approach to tea. His vision is to free the tea leaf from any commercial, conventional, or established form, and to explore its potential as a means for expressing and conveying deeply personal perceptions and emotions.