Chen Hui Yi

Chen Hui Yi holds the quiet center of tea.place’s editorial voice for the lighter side of Chinese tea — white, green, and yellow categories. Working from Guangdong, the province that gave the world gōngfū chá (工夫茶), she anchors the Asian rooms and shapes how the community encounters teas that whisper rather than shout.

In 2016 she spent an entire withering season in Fuding with Master Lin, learning the precise touch required to produce Bái Háo Yínzhēn (白毫银针) with its signature silver tips. That patience now informs her approach to every white tea she curates — from the fluffy elegance of Bái Mǔdān (白牡丹) and the creamy sweetness of Yuèguāng Bái (月光白) to the deep, date-sweet complexity of aged Shòu Méi (寿眉). Her palate extends to the rarefied world of yellow teas, where she champions the gently wrapped Jūn Shān Yín Zhēn (君山银针) and the honeyed notes of Huáng Chá (黄茶) from Anhui. In 2019, Chen joined Teamotea, bringing her decade of sourcing experience to the community.

Her guided tea walking tours — listed on tea.travel — turn city streets into tea atlas pages. The Tokyo Chinese-tea walking tour she hosts each April winds through Asakusa and Ueno, visiting both century-old Chinese tea importers and new-wave matcha-adjacent cafés. The Paris 11e tea-room tour, launched in 2023, maps the arrondissement’s hidden Chinese tea rooms, tasting sessions that bridge French patisserie with Yínzhēn and aged bái chá.

In her widely shared thread on tea.place, ‘The Berlin tea scene in 2026 — who's pouring, who's gone’, Chen documented the rapid turnover and rising authenticity of Chinese tea houses in the German capital, a piece that sparked a live discussion with tea.school students.

She also develops curriculum for tea.school, where her workshop ‘Reading a White Tea Leaf’ teaches students to assess astringency, sweetness, and oxidation through careful tasting of three vintages of Shòu Méi. On puerh.app, she contributes long-form essays on the aging arc of white teas, drawing parallels with the transformation of shēng pǔ'ěr (生普洱) over time.

Whether she’s cupping a 2008 Fuding Shòu Méi or guiding a group through a Tokyo alleyway, Chen Hui Yi embodies the tea.place ethos: deep knowledge shared without haste, in service of the leaf.