Taste as a reading.
In Taoist thought, the five elements each carry a flavor — Wood is sour, Fire bitter, Earth sweet, Metal pungent, Water salty. This evening tasting moves through all five, pouring the flavor of each element and then meeting it with a bite of a different flavor, so every course is a small balance of opposites. Which flavor you reach for, and which you resist, becomes a quiet, non-verbal reading of where you are tonight.
Five pours in the generating cycle. Sip the pour, meet it with the contrasting bite, then reset with the cleanser before the next.
Welcome & framing
A short introduction to the five elements and their flavors, and the idea of taste as a reading. You note the flavor you're drawn to tonight.
The tasting journey
The five pours in turn, each with its contrasting bite and a palate cleanser between — with a little teaching and a reflection at each station.
Build your own 话梅酒
Layer dried salted plums, rock sugar, and a clear spirit into a jar, seal, and label it. It steeps at home over two to four weeks into your own salted-plum liqueur.
Closing reflection
A short close — or pull an oracle card — on which flavor and element spoke to you, and what it might mirror. You leave with your steeping jar.
Your own jar of salted-plum liqueur, steeping, plus a small five-flavors and five-elements guide card.
21+ with valid ID; a full non-alcoholic track is available. Contains egg, nuts, and alcohol — please let me know of allergies. Shared as Taoist culinary tradition.