Enjoying a handmade Korean herbal tea at Mind Garden

▲ Mind Garden / Monk Sunyeop

Before coffee invaded South Korea, green tea was widely enjoyed alongside other traditionally made herbal teas. Like many other cultures, Koreans drink tea for relaxing and refreshing. Despite considerably less number of tea houses in South Korea nowadays, there are still people taking the trouble to find a nice tea house even it is quite far from where they live.

Nestled in Hwado-eup, Namyangju City, 52.4km west from Seoul City Hall, Mind Garden is one of a few tea houses worth paying a visit if you are a tea lover. Monk Sunyeop, who runs the business and who called it a tea museum, has devoted 15 years of her life to developing over 200 kinds of handmade herbal and medicinal Korean teas from seasonal to rather contemporary detox and diet teas.

Sunyeop suffered from angina and stomach ache since young. To make matters worse, she was infected by a virus while she was working at a hospice which caused a severe pain in her nervous system. Like many Koreans who still believe in traditional folk remedies, she was naturally drawn to alternatives and eventually came to know about the natural healing effect of medicinal herbs and teas. Surprisingly, symptoms got better and better after years of continuous intake of herbal teas and she is free from stomach ache and headache now. 

Mind Garden teas were introduced as wellbeing teas by China Central Television in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, Sunyeop was invited to the Goryeo Buddhist Painting Exhibition held at Tibet House New York. In September and October the same year, Mind Garden teas attracted a great attention by tea lovers in LA and New York. 

She studied tea at Dongguk University Lifelong Learning Center and deepened her study by obtaining a degree at Wonkwang Digital University. She published her first book Sunyeop's Healing Tea in February 2020. The book is melted with her 15 years of knowledge in choosing and making Korean herbal teas. She is writing a serial at a Buddhist newspaper and running a Youtube channel. PowerKorea.