After Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival – popularly known as the Moon Festival – is the most widely celebrated event in Asia. This year it falls on 17 September, though celebrations often start earlier and run later.

Legend has it that one year, 10 suns rose in the sky, resulting in a scorched earth. The great archer Hou Yi shot nine of them down, leaving just one to give light. To reward the hero, Queen Mother of the West Xiwangmu gave him an elixir of immortality but Yi did not want to leave his wife, Chang’e. Yi’s apprentice Fengmeng, however, learnt of the elixir and plotted to take it for himself. While Yi was out hunting, Fengmeng tried to coerce Chang’e to give the elixir to him. She refused and instead took the potion herself, becoming one with the sky. To be close to her husband, she chose to live on the moon. Upon Yi’s return from the hunt, he learned what happened and made an offering of the fruits and cakes Chang’e favoured. His cause was taken up by others in the community and such offerings are made every year during the festival.

There are, of course, other versions of the tale where Yi is not so revered but, in the spirit of celebration, this is the favoured story.

The festival is known for its iconic display of lanterns, a dual symbol of light and fertility (due to their shape), and mooncakes – round pastries traditionally filled with nuts, seeds and/or beans – which represent completeness and unity.

One tradition is to take tea outdoors in the evening. “Teacups were placed on stone tables in the garden, where the family would pour tea and chat, waiting for the moment when the full moon’s reflection appeared in the centre of their cups,” according to a book on festivals in China.

So what tea should you drink? Moon-themed tea names are plentiful in the white tea category; moonlight white tea from Yunnan province in China, for example, is apparently picked by moonlight from old Camellia taliensis trees, and many others are named for their whitish appearance, akin to a clear, bright moon.

Or, you can have a go at matching tea with the wide range of mooncake flavours available – some mooncakes even boast tea as an ingredient.

The important thing is to remember the connection between the moon and water: good water makes good tea and good tea makes a good Moon Festival. What goes around comes around – much like that glowing orb in the night sky.

Sources:

• Handbook of Chinese Mythology by Lihui Yang, Deming An and Jessica Anderson Turner (Oxford University Press, 2005)
• Mooncakes and Hungry Ghosts: Festivals of China by Carol Stepanchuk and Charles Choy Wong (San Francisco China Books & Periodicals, 1991)

This article originally appeared in AUSTCS enews 3 September 2024.