[00:00:01] Luke: All right, Simon. Here's my first question for you, and this is totally off topic, but I was wondering this, when you're on your way over here. If you could generalize the attitude Chinese people have toward the government versus Americans, and it's a very general question, what would the difference be?

[00:00:22] Simon: Wow. This is a super interesting question, something that I have thought about. It's very hard to answer without being political.

[00:00:31] Luke: You can be political. I've had some crazy political people on show before. Whatever you say will be tame compared to things that we've discussed the past.

[00:00:41] Simon: I can tell you that, in the previous administration, there was-- and this was Trump bleeding into it. There was an immense aversion towards anything American. And I speak for a lot of people that I know in Hong Kong and China as well. Obviously, there's media manipulation, but there's also a huge number of people in Hong Kong who would love to send their kids to the US for school, boarding school, college.

[00:01:12] I did that. My parents did some portion of that. Most of my friends did some portion of that. And there was a completely huge shift in the opposite direction where it's like, we'll do everything we can not to send our kids to America.

[00:01:29] Luke: Wow.

[00:01:30] Simon: Yeah, it was very bad. And it was like no one has any interest in coming. I'm trying to beg my friends to come, like, "Please come and visit. It's so amazing. It's so beautiful. It's not as bad as the news says." And honestly, many people just refuse to come. And these are people that were educated in America and could go anywhere they want in the world.

[00:01:52] And I have to say that a lot of that has actually changed. Since the new administration, there's a change. They see that there's a change for the better, even in spite of things like tariffs, potentially more adverse context for China to operate in.

[00:02:18] I think that there's this general desire for the world to be more stable, for there to be more peace, for there to be more harmony between people. And from my point of view, I think America needs to thrive for that to happen. It's very obvious that America is a huge pillar for Western civilization.

[00:02:43] And I think that when there's balance in the world, it leads to a more harmonious outcome than when there isn't. And I think that for all the things that are happening in the East and with China's ascension, which is pretty damn unstoppable, in reality, it's not very stoppable.

[00:03:00] And even slowing it down might be difficult. A world where the two can coexist in competition, I think that's going to be quite natural, is going to be very healthy for everybody, including those both countries and certainly the people in it. And I think it's really important that we figure out how to coexist together.

[00:03:22] Frankly, it's like a huge thing that I think about all the time and makes me honestly very worried. I think we can pretty much unequivocally agree that China and the US going to war with each other is much worse than China and the US competing peacefully with each other.

[00:03:44] Luke: Totally, totally.

[00:03:45] Simon: That's got to a truth. And so there are many proponents for us to get into a war and for escalation in the US and in China. That's clearly a bad outcome.

[00:03:57] Luke: I've only ever spent time in Hong Kong, not mainland China, probably 20 years ago. It felt very international. I didn't really feel like, oh, I'm in China because there were so many Brits there and Europeans. I didn't feel like I got a real sense of what mainland China is like.

[00:04:22] But that's also having not been to both and be able to compare them. But when I think of, as an American during the COVID era, which I guess we're coming up in many ways, people like me looked at China like, oh my God, the social credit score and the way it's portrayed in, not the mainstream media, but in alternative media is like, this is what they're trying to do to America.

[00:04:50] They're trying to turn it into a communist country. And so the way that mainland China has been portrayed is much more authoritarian than what I experienced when I went to Hong Kong. It seemed very free. It was just like another America, a beautiful, clean city in a tropical place. It was very cool.

[00:05:09] Great food everywhere, interesting people, culture. So I'm imagining the authoritarian version of communist China. I couldn't imagine that taking place in Hong Kong because it seemed so lax and free.

[00:05:26] Simon: Yeah, yeah. I obviously grew up in Hong Kong and lived in China for about seven, eight years, in Beijing and Shanghai, and have traveled quite a bit around China and have many Chinese friends. There are certainly differences between how China's administered and the US is administered.

[00:05:52] But I think there are also many similarities. The social credit thing, the censorship, a lot of people are complaining about those things in America. You can get locked out of the financial system here. There've been a ton of podcasts on this topic recently. There's quite a bit of censorship in legacy media. It's undeniable. It's shocking, actually.

[00:06:21] Luke: Yeah, totally. I have friends and guests on the show that have been de-platformed from banks and social media and things like that during that time.

[00:06:29] Simon: Exactly.

[00:06:30] Luke: Which is terrifying.

[00:06:31] Simon: It's absolutely terrifying.

[00:06:33] Luke: Because it's like you know where that leads if you have any remote understanding of history.

[00:06:37] Simon: Yeah, yeah. But as far as like Hong Kong and China goes, I think the level of national pride in China is very high. I think that there's a bunch of millionaires, billionaires that want to get their money out, and that's often the focal point of media to be like, everyone wants to leave. Everyone wants to get their money out.

[00:06:56] If you're a billionaire, of course, you want to diversify. You don't want all of your assets in a communist country. That wouldn't be very smart. And so some margin of that is going to want to get out. It would be commonsensical for that to happen.

[00:07:09] But I think that's often the focal point for like, it's a terrible authoritarian state with this terrible dictator. It's not really administered in the way that people think, where one person calls every single shot and overrules everybody. There's a poll bureau.

[00:07:25] There's a whole completely invisible behind-the-scenes, no transparency operating system with a large number of very smart people in it-- very, very smart public servants. And they're making these decisions in some-- it's not consensus, but it's certainly collaborative to some degree to make very smart decisions that are very long-term decisions.

[00:07:51] I think the basic thing I'm trying to say is that the perception is very different between what you get fed by the media versus what the reality is. And I think for a lot of people that aren't millionaires, billionaires, that the level of national pride is pretty damn high.

[00:08:08] Hong Kong is obviously very different. And I think Hong Kong is this beautiful example of what you get when you have this melting pot between East and West. It's very sad, but they're much fewer Westerners in Hong Kong than there used to be. And you can see the negative of effect of that.

[00:08:30] There are much fewer people in Lan Kwai Fong, which is the place where people go out to dance, listen to music, and drink, wonderful restaurants. The only time right now in Hong Kong where it feels like the way it used to be is during Art Basel.

[00:08:44] Everybody comes in, beautiful cultural expression, beautiful creativity, the merging of cultural influences from everywhere, the integration and building upon that. Different modes of thought, different ways of thinking.

[00:08:58] Hong Kong started off in the early days as a place where Western pioneers went, much like the first people that went to California. These were highly entrepreneurial people. Some, obviously, were unethical, drug dealers. But that's a very small percentage.

[00:09:14] There's highly enterprising, highly entrepreneurial, highly exploratory, adventurous people going to explore a new frontier. And you can imagine the energy that shaped Hong Kong to be this incredible city where you have insanely high GDP per capitas.

[00:09:32] The main financial center in Asia and this beautiful cuisine. One of the highest rates of longevity you have anywhere. In fact, the highest in the world for women for a period.

[00:09:45] Luke: Sorry to interrupt, but that's crazy there. And this is going to lead into some of my other questions because, generally speaking, large cities don't treat people very well in terms of longevity and health. So it's so interesting that that's the case.

[00:10:02] Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are major cultural events there from classical music to contemporary art. The art fairs, Sotheby's, Christie's, all the auction houses, super active there. It's such an amazing place, and it's like, okay. That to me is like, if the East and West can be friends and we can be more open, that's an example of how things could be.

[00:10:27] Luke: Totally. I loved it there. It's one of the coolest cities I've ever been to, and I'm not really a fan of most cities.

[00:10:33] Simon: Right.

[00:10:33] Luke: But I think one thing I really enjoyed about it was, a, that it was so multicultural, but also there's just something about a city in the tropics. I haven't been to them. Rio de Janeiro is like that. You're in a tropical place. You're near the coast, but it's a massive city right there.

[00:10:50] There's something really unique about that. Thank you for entertaining me on this. It's not at all the purpose of our chat, but I haven't met anyone from China in a minute, so I'm just curious. Why do you think there was such an exodus of Westerners over the past couple of decades?

[00:11:10] Simon: I don't think it's a couple of decades thing. I think it's much more recent. I think it happened during COVID. And there were a series of riots before. It's so funny. I can't believe we're talking about this. How do I start? Basically, Hong Kong used to be a British colony all the way up to 1997.

[00:11:35] Following 1997, China had this policy of one country, two systems. So Hong Kong was going to be independent of China, but be part of the same country. So you administer yourselves in your own way, do whatever you want. And this was largely done to set an example to Taiwan.

[00:11:51] It's like, "Hey, we can coexist. We're not going to go and take everybody's assets and go and turn it into this draconian state. Look how they can flourish." And so for the longest time, the legislation in Hong Kong was not touched by China in a significant way. We had no national security legislation.

[00:12:10] So there was no basic legislation to say that treason is illegal, that espionage is illegal, that if you commit these crimes, you're going to be subjected to any penalty. And a lot of people think that the British intentionally left us with this legislative gap because implementing that would inherently begin this conversation of infringement of free speech, infringement of human rights, this, that, and the other.

[00:12:35] And indeed, every single time we tried to pass this legislation, people took to the streets. And so I think this all culminated in a series of protests leading up to COVID, where it was very well known, student riots. By the way, it was completely violent.

[00:12:58] The irony of it is everything that's being done to Tesla today was done in Hong Kong publicly to a much higher degree. So things were lit on fire. Fire bombs, bricks being broken out of the ground to be hurled at police. People died. People were injured. People were terrified of going to the streets.

[00:13:19] And so you want to call that peaceful protesting, or you want to call it terrorism? I don't know. It's in the eye of the beholder. But many people were terrified. And so when COVID came-- and by the way, why are people doing this in Hong Kong in such a coordinated way?

[00:13:38] And it's a very similar level of coordination as what's happening to Tesla, what's happening in any regime change target, frankly. There's a playbook, which you're probably familiar of how this works.

[00:13:52] Luke: Yeah, totally. Here when we had the riots going on, there was just mysterious pallets of bricks showing up. There's a lot of funny business going on.

[00:14:00] Simon: Right. There's a lot of funny business going on. And so when COVID came, China locked down like crazy, as you know. And I don't want to pass judgment about whether it was right or wrong. I really don't want to pass judgment about whether any of these things are right or wrong.

[00:14:16] I'm just trying to be as factual as possible. But the type of quarantine that were in place was serious, heavy duty. I didn't go home for all those years because it was like three weeks in a hotel room. Can you imagine spending three weeks in a hotel room? No one know--

[00:14:31] Luke: Oh my God.

[00:14:32] Simon: And a friend of mine told me about it recently where it's like they would come to your room once a day and it's like this guy that shows up. First of all, they kick your food into the room in a tray. They kick it in. So you're like a dog, basically. And then they come in. They're full hazmat suit. They swab your nose, And then they stick it in the thing.

[00:14:51] And then they invert their gloves and take everything off and throw it into the garbage bin that is in your room and kick that into your room and shut the door. So it's like you're doing that every day for like three weeks. So it was crazy.

[00:15:04] Luke: I'm already arrested at the point where they want to put something up my nose, which I never did and never will.

[00:15:09] Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:15:10] Luke: I guess these are the things that we would see on social media and just be like, oh my God.

[00:15:15] Simon: Yeah, super hardcore.

[00:15:17] Luke: But it's like that goes into what we perceive to be-- and again, I haven't been there-- a North Korean situation. Whereas what you described moments ago where it's a communist country, but yet at the same time, there is some level of checks and balances. There are committees at least deciding, not just one single great leader kind of thing. But during that period, it looked more like the former. I was just like, "Whoa."

[00:15:46] Simon: Yes, yes, yes. And by the way, Hong Kong was free to set its own guidelines. But the fear in Hong Kong is that-- frankly, the public servants in Hong Kong have no idea what they're doing. They've never been set up to govern a country or a city. And Hong Kong is a pretty significant economy. It's a significant state to have to govern and administer.

[00:16:09] And so the default is like, whatever China's doing, we'll just do that, because that's safe. We're not going to get in trouble. There's a big thing of like, don't get into trouble. And that preceded the 1997. It's just like, just don't do anything wrong. Can't go wrong if you don't do anything wrong.

[00:16:24] So there's never any change. So anyway, that was an opportunity for Hong Kong to basically purge itself of all of the foreign influence. All of the covert, subversive influences was purged out of Hong Kong because nobody wanted to come in. A lot of people wanted to leave.

[00:16:45] It was completely miserable a place to live in, as you can imagine. And so many people left. Actually, preceding that, the national security law was passed. And so all of those things happen in conjunction to basically purge everybody. So a lot of the Westerners left.

[00:17:04] And then China, there have been sanctions. There have been various other measures to have China suffer economically. And so there was a huge exodus of people in the financial industry, because there used to be a major financial hub, lots of investment bankers, lawyers, hedge fund managers.

[00:17:27] A lot of them move to Singapore. So anyways, one thing leads to another, and service providers have to leave. There are fewer tax accountants because there are fewer expats and all of this stuff. Fewer lawyers because there are fewer deals. But a lot of that stuff is recovering. It's shifting back. A lot of the family offices that went to Singapore are coming back. But that was the purge. That's why it happened.

[00:17:48] Luke: Wow. Interesting.

[00:17:50] Simon: We'd love for them to come back.

[00:17:52] Luke: Yeah.

[00:17:52] Simon: Yeah, it'd be a much nicer place. Let's make Hong Kong the way it used to be.

[00:17:57] Luke: I think these cultural changes in those big urban centers is very cyclical. When I first moved to LA, it was pretty rough. Hollywood was a rough town-- dirty, lots of crime, gangs, prostitutes on the street, drug dealers on the street. And then over the course of 10, 15 years, it cleaned up and got nicer and safer.

[00:18:19] And then in 2020, it got weird again. And you still live in the LA area? I haven't been back in a while, but I'm sure it's weirder than it was pre-2020 still, but it'll bounce back. Same thing Manhattan. Manhattan was really dirty and dangerous for a couple decades and then things changed.

[00:18:36] There's influx of the financial climate changes, cultural changes, and then it's awesome for a while. And then not so much. I think Austin is in the upswing at the moment, but there will probably become a time when Austin is a shithole for a couple of decades too.

[00:18:54] Simon: That's very true. Everything is cool.

[00:18:57] Luke: Yeah, it's the way things go. Let's get into growing up in Hong Kong and being in, I guess, the wellness industry now yourself and being interested in longevity and health and all the things. What are some of the cultural differences in how longevity is approached in Asian culture in general?

[00:19:20] Because we know Chinese traditional medicine goes way, way back. And now there are many practitioners, of course, in the West that have caught onto that and all kinds of great companies producing herbs and things like this. But as a kid and you growing up, what was different about that?

[00:19:37] Simon: Yeah, yeah. That's a great question. There is a huge difference in cultural perception. I think in China, the concept of longevity and sagehood is very ingrained in traditional culture. And the sagehood thing, wisdom's a big part of it. That's how you become a sage.

[00:19:57] And I think there's also this understanding that you can't become a sage, at least it's very unusual, when you're 15. You have to get old. So if you're die super early, that's counterproductive. The daoists were actually alchemists. And so they believe that there's this like internal alchemy.

[00:20:16] You do the qigong meditation, and you convert your qi into spirit, into shen, and then your shen basically reconnects you with the universe, with the source. And that's the ultimate, accomplishment of sage. And then you're done. You don't have to come back.

[00:20:34] And so that's very integral part of Chinese culture. It's in the paintings. It's in the poetry. It's in the literature. It's always part of it. And so, of course, it's going to be a big part of the cuisine. And so in Hong Kong, it's, again, a super interesting microcosm because Hong Kong didn't go through the cultural revolution.

[00:20:56] It was a British colony, and it was allowed to continue enriching and developing and flourishing. People got richer and richer. And so with that, people were able to have more and more amazing lifestyles, and the food was a big part of it. And so in Hong Kong, it's like the gearing and orientation towards wellness is at a crazy level, and it's completely natural and effortless.

[00:21:22] And so I'll give you an example. When my wife got pregnant, we were 100% we're going back to Hong Kong to have this child because I wanted her to be very well taken care of. And so there's a common thing called a confinement lady. And the confinement lady, the month after giving birth, you stay at home, and the confinement lady makes different soups for you every single day and different teas for you.

[00:21:47] And there are things to help the mother produce more milk, to regain her vitality, to replenish her blood loss. And there's one silly thing that isn't really done, but it's a good analogy, is that you take a chicken and you boil it into a cup, and she drinks it every day.

[00:22:05] It's very imbalancing to do that, so people don't do that, but it's analogous to the kind of care the mother gets. And the whole concept is that keep mom super healthy, well rested, taken care of, so she's going to produce amazing milk, which is what the baby needs. And be super calm and present and energized to take care of the baby.

[00:22:21] Super smart. And guess what? She recovers way better, so she doesn't have to deal with side effects, chronic disease, long-term health issues. She's ready to have more children if she wants, and she's going to recover and bounce back amazingly well. Better for the marriage too.

[00:22:37] So we did that. And so that's one example. She had people wrap her belly every day so that she recovered with different herbs, people that came and massage her breasts to produce more milk. And we had this confinement lady that cooked all the meals for us, for me too, and it's just like, wow, okay.

[00:22:57] So that's one example. The diet is insanely important. So in Hong Kong, we have these like daily soups, and the daily soups always have some collagen source. So it's either fish or pork or beef or chicken, some protein source. And each one of those differ, by the way, depending on seasonality and on the climate tree changes.

[00:23:24] And then on top of that, you add different herbs and vegetables. And each one differs according to what the external environment is prescribing and the internal environment calls for. So this daoist approach, you have inner universe in your body. There's the outer universe of your environment. And the two things have to be in harmony for you to thrive and be well.

[00:23:46] And so if you're a middle-aged woman going through menopause and it's the summer, you drink something very different than a 20-year-old man in the winter, totally different. And so those things are prescribed on a pretty precise level to constantly rebalance, rebalance, rebalance, understanding that seasons change, age changes.

[00:24:05] And then you have community. Insanely important. And this sounds like a cliche, but in every blue zone, there's community. My mom has a busier social schedule than I do by far.

[00:24:17] Luke: Really?

[00:24:17] Simon: Yeah, it's crazy.

[00:24:19] Luke: What age is your mom?

[00:24:20] Simon: She's 78. But I go back, and it's like I have to make plans with her to hang out because--

[00:24:28] Luke: She's got to fit you in her schedule?

[00:24:28] Simon: She does, because she has a regular lunch every Friday. She goes to many music events. She goes to see art exhibitions. Then friends are inviting for dinner. And then concerts. She used to dance. Then they play cards. There's Mahjong. There's bridge. She plays Go now. She takes Go lessons. And she walks her dogs every morning.

[00:24:52] It's completely common for that, for people that are in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s-plus to be doing that. And you'll imagine the not being lonely, the not being abandoned, the not being secluded, and frankly just unloved, how good for longevity that is.

[00:25:14] And obviously, there's the inclusiveness of the family in addition. It's like the kids, the grandkids, the three generations going out every single week, hanging out together.

[00:25:24] Luke: I think just the reverence for elderly from what I get from you and just my observations, imagine ourselves as much older and the difference-- again, speaking in generalities-- the difference with Western culture or American culture where there's this sense when people get elderly, they become a burden rather than a resource, not just within the family system, but just socially.

[00:25:54] It's like, oh yeah, we got to put them in a home. It's just like they're largely treated as dependents rather than something to value. And obviously, objectively that doesn't feel good, but think about if you're that person who's like, ah, no one really wants to hear your stories anymore about the old days.

[00:26:15] Simon: You're like discarded.

[00:26:16] Luke: Yeah. No one's interested in extracting your wisdom and having you mentor them, teach them what you know. I think that's one of the most sad things about our culture, just watching people get older and losing their sense of purpose because they're not valued in that way.

[00:26:35] Simon: Yeah, yeah. Us being asked for advice, being asked to take care of your kids. And I think that it actually hurts us also because I think these things are totems for us. They're cultural guides, and elders, they're meant to be revered and respected because they do have more wisdom.

[00:26:55] Of course, you can go too far where it's like there's just blind subordination, and that happens a lot in Asia too, where there's just this blind subordination to the will of the elders. So I think some healthy balances is required, but yeah.

[00:27:11] Luke: Yeah. My dad passed a couple of months ago.

[00:27:14] Simon: Sorry to hear that.

[00:27:15] Luke: Thank you. Yeah. And I didn't realize how much I valued-- I valued him as my dad and as a friend. But in terms of his wisdom, I didn't realize how often I would call on him for advice about different things.

[00:27:35] Simon: Yeah.

[00:27:36] Luke: And so even in the short period of time, there'll be a situation that comes up and I go, "Oh, I'll ask my d--" Oh.

[00:27:43] Simon: Oh man.

[00:27:45] Luke: Shit.

[00:27:46] Simon: Call my dad to--

[00:27:47] Luke: Yeah. And I know my two brothers feel the same way. The accumulated wisdom and life experience that he had that is not available anymore. And thankfully, we all, I think, appreciated it while he was here and availed ourself to it as much as we could.

[00:28:04] But man, when it's gone and there's a void, it's really noticeable. So I've found myself going through the mental Rolodex, like, do I know anyone else that has that level of wisdom about certain aspects of life? Not really. I don't really know any other elderly people other than my mom. But she has a different set of gifts, and there's things I would go to for her that would be different.

[00:28:28] Simon: Yeah.

[00:28:29] Luke: So it's really interesting in that way. I'm hoping that we are able to change course and start to have a little more reverence and appreciation. It's just funny you think about like, here, I don't know how rare it is, but it feels like it'd be a very rare experience for a family, say wife, husband, couple of kids, to have either of you of the grandparents come live with you when they're in their 80s and 90s and their health is declining. Who does that?

[00:28:59] Simon: Yeah, nobody.

[00:29:00] Luke: Very few people. And so that person's tucked away somewhere in a home with other elderly people. And there's so much, not only like their benefit of that experience, but we're missing out on so much of what they have to offer because that's just the groove that we've cut culturally and we just keep going in that direction. Weird.

[00:29:21] All right. l want to talk about tea. You, I think, pretty sure, are the person in the world that if I had to call on someone that knows about tea, you would be the guy. So maybe we could start with the historical context. And then there's so many nuances I want to get into because I think the way that Americans look at tea is like the Lipton tea bag in your hotel room that's barely a step above drinking water in a plastic bottle. I don't think we have a lot of reverence or value for tea.

[00:29:56] Simon: Yeah.

[00:29:56] Luke: I believe, thanks to people like you who are bringing this education to the forefront, it's not only one of the most ancient plant medicines, but one of the most effective. And thankfully because you figured something out, also can be delicious and convenient.

[00:30:13] So there's a lot to unpack there. And I'm having a really beautiful black Pu'er tea right now from your company Pique. Thank you very much. It's delicious. So that's a preface there. And I will say the only experiences I've had that really, no pun intended, piqued my interest in tea is when I've sat in traditional tea ceremonies.

[00:30:36] So we have a friend named Shiva Rose here, who's a beautiful tea ceremonialist. And so it's a very mindful ritual. There's just stillness and quiet. And the tea not only tastes delicious because it's very high quality, special tea, fermented tea and whatnot. But there's also a different energetic to the experience of drinking the tea. There's a different buzz. There's a different kind of frequency to it. And so I value that and enjoy that from time to time when I'm able to sit with her.

[00:31:11] Simon: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:12] Luke: But I think that's such a small percentage of the population that ever has that experience. There's a little subculture of tea ceremonies and stuff, but it's not something most people are even aware of. So take me back as far as you can in terms of tea culture, and then we can get into cultivation and types and things like that.

[00:31:34] Simon: Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think the first thing I will start with is that there are a ton of super foods that are being discussed and discovered and talked about, but I think as you rightly identified, very few have the extremely broad and extremely long usage that tea does.

[00:31:59] And that's important because any super conclusive study that you can really lean everything on and not tip over as far as substantiation and data and research goes, there are very few things like tea basically that have been used for as long a period for by as many people with this level of consistency.

[00:32:24] Literally drinking every single day, multiple cups, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people in China, Japan, India, Korea, Taiwan. So this is a very, very substantive super food with very well documented health properties. And I think that's often lost because there's always this shiny new thing.

[00:32:47] And tea experientially is so dull for so many people. It's so bad tasting, so hard to prepare, so hard to decipher that, like you say, the times that you've enjoyed it the most is when someone's done it and served it to you. And then you're like, "Oh, wow. This is great."

[00:33:08] Luke: Yeah, because of the intentionality and the presence of those kind of experiences, but also the quality of the tea.

[00:33:16] Simon: 100%.

[00:33:16] Luke: You taste it and you're like, "Oh, whoa, what's this?"

[00:33:19] Simon: Wow, I've never tasted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there are tea masters because tea is very hard to brew very well. And even proceeding that, more upstream is very hard to identify what's great and not and actually get your hands on it.

[00:33:34] So you need the raw material, then you need to know how to extract it, to brew it. And then it's presented to you. And I think tea bags do a very poor job of that because there's this saying about you talk to tea vendors-- we have a lot of tea vendors-- and they're like, "Yeah, you pick up all the whole leaves and all the stuff that falls down the shake. Those are what's put in tea bags. " And I don't think it's literally like that if you're a Lipton because the volume is way too high, but it's not the high-quality stuff.

[00:34:01] Luke: The shake. I haven't heard that.

[00:34:02] Simon: The shake. That's literary the shake of tea.

[00:34:05] Luke: Stoners out there will know the word shake.

[00:34:08] Simon: Yes.

[00:34:09] Luke: You don't want the shake. You want the buds.

[00:34:11] Simon: You want the buds, precisely. And the tender tips are what we use for tea. In the spring, they're like the leaf and two buds, it's called actually. And so in the spring, a main leaf will pop out in two little buds with it and you take all three of them. That's what makes amazing-- that's what the Pu'er you're drinking is made of. I don't know. This is such a long question. I'm a history major, so this could be a three-hour--

[00:34:35] Luke: No, go dude. Go deep.

[00:34:37] Simon: The legend is that Buddha discovered tea, which is not true because Buddha is Indian. But he know, he fell asleep meditating, and he was so upset that he cut off his eyelids and they fell to the ground, and out of that, sprouted a tea tree.

[00:34:52] Tea was discovered much earlier than that. But I think that the earliest is at least 1,000 years old, probably two. And in fact, pu-erh tea is one of the earliest teas. It's very interesting because they were packed in these cakes.

[00:35:10] So pu-erh teas were packed into cakes and compressed because they're from the western region of China, near the Himalayas, Yunnan province. Extremely beautiful area, home to the biggest biodiversity of mushrooms in the world. And this tea had to be transported in horses out of that area. Donkeys, mountainous paths into the coastal areas where the market was. It's like brick weed.

[00:35:36] Luke: Yeah. Exactly. You're reading my mind.

[00:35:38] Simon: Yeah. In order to transport, they had to pressing into those cakes.

[00:35:40] Luke: I was just thinking about when they get cannabis from Mexico to California often comes in bricks.

[00:35:46] Simon: Yeah, exactly.

[00:35:47] Luke: Sometimes it smells like gasoline.

[00:35:49] Simon: Right, right.

[00:35:50] Luke: Because they put in a gas tank.

[00:35:51] Simon: Oh gosh. Okay. So they had to be compressed into these disc, and they were stacked together to be transported out. One of the remarkable things that happen, and this is the case for Pu'er tea, is that there's a fermentation process that takes place. And so it gets rained on. The horses sweat into it.

[00:36:09] It's gross. But the tea has this virtuous process. And unhealthy molds that are toxic don't form because tea has this amazing property of actually controlling pathogens. So in the gut, it actually prevents dysbiosis, which is proliferation of bad bacteria.

[00:36:29] And so it has this very virtuous property to it where it controls the bad bugs. Anyway, so fermentation takes place, and the tea goes from green. When you see a leaf fall from the tree, it goes from green and then it turns black over time. Obviously, oxidation's a part of it, but there's also this fermentation process where the microbes on the leaves are causing this transformation.

[00:36:56] Luke: There's no difference between a black tea and a green tea or a matcha. It all starts out as green. It's just what happens to it from the time it's picked until it ends up in your cup.

[00:37:07] Simon: Precisely. It all starts out as green. And the nice thing about pu-erh teas is that it's from a very special tea varietal that tends to live much longer and grow much bigger, and they have bigger leaves also. And the reason that's good is because-- and this is getting super deep into the pu-erh teas. So our pu-erh tea trees, they're like 250 years old.

[00:37:30] They were planted by a seed. And after five years of growth rate is the height of a cell phone. So by the time it's productive, you need at least 20 years. And that's on the very young side. And so if it's born by a seed and 200 years old, the root structures are so deep That there's no competition for nutrients with the trees. And so everything is allowed to proliferate. All the vegetation, the little weeds and the shrubs, there is no control of that whatsoever.

[00:38:01] Luke: Oh, that's interesting. Because if you're dealing with, say, industrial agriculture--

[00:38:07] Simon: Anything but the cash crop.

[00:38:09] Luke: It's like replanted every single time into dead soil.

[00:38:12] Simon: Exactly. And that's when you need chemicals. And so all of this stuff is dying and decomposing and enriching the soil, which is creating this very fertile and very biodiverse nutrient source. And then those microbes are ending up on the leaves too, and it's causing this virtuous fermentation of the leaves from green to black.

[00:38:34] And at every point in the spectrum, from green to black, a different set of active ingredients are created, different sets of polyphenols. And so in the poor green tea, you have very high levels of this, of catechins, which are the standard green tea antioxidants. And as you shift to the black, those catechins become converted to theaflavin, which is what gives black tea the color.

[00:38:54] And they all have completely different health properties. So catechins, good for immune support, things like that. The theaflavin is good for cardiovascular health, healthy heart function. They're also statins that are produced. And so all along the spectrum, magical things are happening.

[00:39:12] Luke: Do you ever envision the first human that ever figured something out? I think about that with Ayahuasca, tea, different things like that. Who was the first person that was like, "Hey, I wonder what happens if I throw some of this in some water and boil it for X amount of hours"? What's it going to do?

[00:39:30] Simon: It is chronicled.

[00:39:32] Luke: Really?

[00:39:32] Simon: Yeah, yeah. Shennong, which is like the god of agriculture, he's a guy who went around just eating plants and observing the-- by myth and legend, he went around eating all plants and observing the effects on himself. And it was said that his body was transparent, so he could see what was happening.

[00:39:52] But he ate tea, and he recorded like, this is the thing that cures the 100 illnesses. This is the one universal thing, basically. It's the one thing that you can basically drink every day and make yourself healthier, which is very important. And that's why it is drank every day pretty much universally, maybe very small groups of people. Most people can drink it every day and reap incredible health benefits. So it's a very common denominator as far as healthy things to consume.

[00:40:24] Luke: I wonder why the British got so into tea. What's up with that? When you go to England, it's like first question. Any house you go into is like, "Oh, cup of tea? Cup of tea." It's like, dude.

[00:40:37] Simon: They were served it, and they had a great experience. They're like, "This shit's good."

[00:40:41] Luke: It's just interesting how it took hold, but not so much in America, I think. I don't know the ratio, but it seems like--

[00:40:48] Simon: Yeah, yeah.

[00:40:49] Luke: People don't even really offer you a cup of coffee unless it's breakfast time, right?

[00:40:53] Simon: Yeah, yeah.

[00:40:54] Luke: I go into very few homes where someone's like, "Hey, would you like a tea?" We always offer people tea because I have a drawer full of your Pique tea, and my wife loves tea. So when podcast guests come over-- it was funny when you came today, because I'm like, "Oh, would you like, oh, would you like--" Oh, you already know about the tea. Because when they express interest, they go, "What do you got?"

[00:41:11] I go, "Just wait. This isn't just any tea." But that said, if I didn't have your tea, I don't know that I would be at home even that offers people tea. One of the reasons being that, I don't know, if you make loose leaf tea, it's a process. It takes a bit of time. It's a bit of a hassle.

[00:41:32] You got to really be into tea to do that. And then if you use tea bags, and even some of the, I guess, better teas, to me, the water's always too hot. I got to wait for it. I don't know what to do with the tea bag. It's like, by the time I remember that it's cool enough, it's too cold. It's just like, I don't know. It's just not that convenient for me.

[00:41:50] But I wonder why some western cultures like Britain, for example, seem to have adopted it into-- it's so deeply woven into their culture while ours has not. Why do you think that is?

[00:42:06] Simon: I think they started with loose leaf as well. So they have a very long tradition of knowing how to prepare it. If somebody makes that at home, they know what they're doing. And they were so early and such pioneers in certain types of tea, English breakfast, Earl Grey, Darjeeling.

[00:42:23] There are certain types of tea that the Brits, that they got good at identifying what's good. And also good at preparing it. And I think that's a nice thing with our teas, obviously. There is no prep required. It's all crystallized, cold extracted. And the cold extraction process that we pioneered, it's-- being able to replicate the aromatics and the flavor and the color of a tea very authentically into a crystal form is actually testament to how much of the active ingredients you've retained.

[00:42:58] Because all of those things are part of the active ingredient profile. Caffeine is bitter. L-theanine is umami. The black color of the tea is the theaflavin. And so if something is super diluted or tastes like crap or is way too tannic or way too bitter, something has gone wrong.

[00:43:15] And I think that this is actually one of the things that makes us very different and where my whole Hong Kong background and experience matters, is that the food that is healthy tastes amazing there.

[00:43:28] And all of our products I formulate to taste really good, like how its original thing is meant to taste. We've never so far developed something that tastes like shit in the raw form. So everything just replicating in the final product what the raw material is. And in that process, creating something that's palatable but also highly authentic through the crystallization process to the raw material.

[00:43:54] Luke: What's the deal with that process? Are you doing some kind of cold-water extraction and then turning it into a dissolvable water-soluble powder? What's the science there to that? Because I've never seen it done anywhere else.

[00:44:09] Simon: That's basically it. We brew at low temps. High temps extracts a ton of caffeine in tea. If you use too hot water for matcha, it becomes very bitter, which is not what matcha is supposed to taste like. It's supposed to tastes umami and creamy and really nice. And that's why people also like it, because it's not as caffeinated. You can make a super caffeinated matcha. Just use boiling water, and it'll keep you up forever.

[00:44:35] Luke: Oh, really?

[00:44:35] Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll be up into the night.

[00:44:38] Luke: That's funny. I didn't know that.

[00:44:40] Simon: Uh-huh.

[00:44:40] Luke: So there's a preferred temperature for matcha?

[00:44:42] Simon: Absolutely. It's lukewarm warm water.

[00:44:42] Luke: Really?

[00:44:45] Simon: Yeah.

[00:44:46] Luke: I've been doing it all wrong then.

[00:44:48] Simon: Oh, it's just straight full-blown?

[00:44:49] Luke: Yeah. One of the reasons that I had more tea in the past couple of years, your tea specifically, is because our filtration system is a hot water sprout.

[00:45:00] Simon: Oh, nice. Very convenient.

[00:45:02] Luke: So it's not boiling, but-- it's hot enough to make coffee, but I don't know what the temperature is.

[00:45:05] Simon: It's not that hot. It's not super hot. But you can always just put a little bit of cold water and then just add the hot. That's the simplest way to do it, so you don't have to go and measure and get a special kettle and all that. But yeah, the process is similar to what you said.

[00:45:18] We cold brew it-- not cold, but low temp. And it varies by tea. Everyone has a different extraction profile that's optimal. And then we take that and we actually filter the water out. So we run it through a filter and recycle, repurpose the water.

[00:45:35] And then you're left with a pasty thing. And then that is dried using almost like a freeze-drying method, but not that cold. Again, it's like just controlling the temperature extremes and making it more gentle to the raw material. That's it, basically.

[00:45:52] Luke: Wow. So if tea trees take that long to propagate and become viable, it sounds like if you're farming tea trees, you want to keep them around for a while. So it sounds like a very sustainable crop. Is there any threat to the farming at all? It seems like it's in everyone's best interest to leave them alone and keep these orchards up and running. But if tea went to scale like it is in Asia, everywhere else, is there enough tea on the planet?

[00:46:25] Simon: Yeah. The vast majority of tea is grown in flat areas, which is the less great type. And so it's like machine harvested. It's sprayed with airplanes.

[00:46:39] Luke: Sprayed with pesticides?

[00:46:41] Simon: Yeah, for sure. Sprayed with everything.

[00:46:42] Luke: Oh. That's such a bad idea because now you're concentrating and extracting the pesticides by making the hot drink out of it.

[00:46:53] Simon: Yeah, no, it's terrible. So very few tea trees are born from seeds, actually. The vast majority is not. So you take a mature tea tree, you cut the branch off, you stick it in water, and then the root system grows sideways. It's actually the central root that sprouts out of a seed that grows deep before growing sideways.

[00:47:12] So it's all sideways and then it's densely planted. So it's all competing for the same nutrients in the top soil. That's why you need to weed it. You need to use herbicides, kill everything, but the cash crop. But it's still not enough typically, so you have to fertilize. And then the plants are super weak. Imagine how weak they are. You have to use like fungicides, pesticides, because it can't defend itself. And so the vast majority of teas were grown like that.

[00:47:39] Luke: How did you source your teas? How did you find farms that aren't operating in that way?

[00:47:45] Simon: Yeah. First of all, the tea actually found me. So I had three operations in my 20s. I don't know if I told you that. But Pique is really the culmination of my own health journey.

[00:48:02] Luke: You had some crazy thing with your jaw.

[00:48:04] Simon: Yes, yes, yes. It was nuts.

[00:48:06] Luke: I heard you tell that story. I was like, "How did this dude live?"

[00:48:09] Simon: Yeah. So I had a decade of like terrible health, and basically rotating door through doctor's clinics. And I was raised at this strange time in Hong Kong's history where, maybe it happened in the US too-- I was born in '78-- but there was this reversion away from Chinese medicine.

[00:48:29] It was like, that shit doesn't work. It's too complicated. You're sick. Go see the doctor, and be sure to take every single medication that's prescribed. And there was this big thing about antibiotics. You got to eat all of it, finish the course, otherwise it doesn't work next time.

[00:48:43] So it's like eat all the meds, all the meds, and it's just like do everything right. So steroid sprays, nasal sprays, throat sprays, steroid creams, antibiotic, everything, skin. Literally everything. And so my health just got worse and worse. Both lungs collapsed, separate occasions, got them stapled up. Didn't think twice about like, this is odd.

[00:49:06] Luke: What caused your lungs to collapse?

[00:49:07] Simon: Spontaneous.

[00:49:09] Luke: What?

[00:49:09] Simon: Yeah, yeah.

[00:49:10] Luke: From what?

[00:49:11] Simon: They say it's like genetic, but I certainly wasn't taking care of myself at all in the slightest. Because it was just like, if you're sick, go see the doctor. I was working in finance, just super stressed. Partied a lot. My life was a mess basically. And then when I turned 30, I knew I had sleep apnea because many girlfriends had told me, and I got it checked out at Stanford. And it was like, oh, it's very bad, the score.

[00:49:40] Anyways, I got pitched and sold to do the surgery where they cut a hole in my jawbone and pulled that piece of bone out where it's attached to my tongue to move the whole thing away from the airway and then put a screw in it, which I didn't know about until it got infected.

[00:49:54] And I was like, "What happened? You didn't even operate on my jaw bone." And they did, and I found out. Stanford, by the way. And so they had to take it out, clean it up, and then I had to be on a month and a half of intravenous antibiotics to cure it. And yeah, it was awful.

[00:50:10] That was this big epiphany for me where, clearly, this is very stupid, what I'm doing to myself. This is a shortcut to an early death with tons of medical intervention along the way, and I don't want that. And so it made me very introspective and just evaluate how I'd been dealing with my health.

[00:50:31] And I was like, "Damn, this is not working. I have to be more responsible. Take control." I got into meditation, TCM, ayurveda, yoga, very similar to you actually. And then completely turned my health around, which led me to turn-- I was also at this career change juncture in my life and then discovered meditation.

[00:50:53] So it was physical, psychological, spiritual, all this happening at once, the transformation. Very short amount of time. And so I started this healthy food restaurant in Shanghai, which is a total flop. But people started sending me products to evaluate, because they're like, "Oh, Simon, you're into healthy foods."

[00:51:15] There's so many products in China. And so they sent me this tea. And when I first got it, there were no instructions. It was in a plastic bag. I put in the water, turned black, like your tea. I was like, "Oh shit, I'm not drinking this." Tossed it.

[00:51:30] And the guy who sent it is like, "No, no, you have to come and meet the founder, and he's like, he's this farmer in Yunnan, and he owns this tea mountain." And I literally didn't want to go. And I was like, "You know what? I have nothing to do this weekend. And so I'll go." And I went, and he told me about the bugs and the soil and the roots of the trees.

[00:51:48] He took me to see the tea trees. We drove eight hours out, met the people that live in the forest, these minority cultures. And they're eating herbs and mushrooms from the forest. They have these fish that are seasoned for a week. It's like you shake the head and the flesh just falls out and it's from these rivers. And I was so blown away by this.

[00:52:08] Luke: Wow.

[00:52:09] Simon: They're cooking over wood, and they took me in and just explain all this. And I was like, "Wow, this universe is incredible." And that's how I got into it. That's how I was like, "You know what? This would be a really cool thing, a really cool business to start."

[00:52:22] Luke: It did literally find you.

[00:52:23] Simon: Yeah, it found me.

[00:52:24] Luke: Wow, wow. That's really interesting.

[00:52:26] Simon: Yeah, yeah. And he's still our supplier for this tea today. And we've been now four times probably to his mountain.

[00:52:34] Luke: That's so cool.

[00:52:35] Simon: Every time I go, he's like, "Simon, I figured it out. I figured it out." I was like, "What?" And every time I go back, he goes deeper into the mountain, into the nature and the ecology. And I'm like, "But you told me last time." He's like, "No, no." And my mind is blown every time because he's gone deeper, and he takes me with him.

[00:52:54] Luke: So at what point did you get the passion to the point where you're like, "I'm going to build something out of this?" Because you might have found the tea and you're like, "Oh, this is nice. I'll drink this tea now." But it's a huge leap from that to like, "Wow, this is so special. I want to actually bring it people.

[00:53:13] Simon: Yeah, yeah. Being a conservative MBA guy, which is very foolish, it took me years to-- so I first launched it in Hong Kong, tested the market, wasted a ton of money, and then it did very well there actually, shockingly well. In the supermarkets, we're doing demos, and then that helped me build up my confidence.

[00:53:34] I was like, “You know what? America's the place to do it." Then we came here and built a new brand and spent a ton of time. But from the early period of wanting to do it, to actually doing it properly took a long time. But I was doing it the whole time. It was a learning process and an iterative process and a series of taking bigger risk at every step of the way sort of a deal.

[00:54:00] Luke: Tell me about the different nutrient and flavor profiles of different tea, because again, going back to just your grocery store tea bags is like, I don't know, barely flavored water. There's such nuance to the teas and the way that you produce them. A, they're all very strong and flavorful, which makes them more interesting to me.

[00:54:27] But I think that many of us just categorize all herbal teas as the same, but there's a lot of variation there, obviously, which you've alluded to in terms of the preparation and fermentation and things like that. But I think there's a lot more there that could be interesting to people.

[00:54:45] Simon: Totally, totally. I think the Sun Goddess Matcha is super interesting because it's totally green. People love the color of it. The reason it's green is because you're drinking literally the suspended powderized particles of the tea leaf. And the flavor profile of that is, very different than anything else.

[00:55:06] Because the tea is shaded for longer, it generates more l-theanine. And catechins are converted into l-theanine during-- it's like a photosynthesis process. And so if you shade it, it prevents-- sorry, it's the other way. So basically, with increased photosynthesis, there is more catechins and less l-theanine is the other way. L-theine gets converted in the catechins.

[00:55:37] And so when you shade, you actually retain more l-theanine, which is the calming amino acid and tea that everybody loves. And by the way, it's only found in tea, not anywhere else. It's the only place in nature where l-theanine is produced.

[00:55:46] Luke: Really?

[00:55:46] Simon: Yeah.

[00:55:46] Luke: That's interesting. I've always heard that that L-theanine that's inherent to tea is the reason that even though there's caffeine in tea, it doesn't get you as anxious as coffee. Is there any truth to that?

[00:56:00] Simon: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. So there's been a ton of studies. L-theanine supports alpha brain activity.

[00:56:07] Luke: Oh, really?

[00:56:08] Simon: Yeah. And it keeps you in the zone. In the isolated form it's in a ton of things. Pre-workout, formulas. It's in a lot of things, tons of nutrients today.

[00:56:21] Luke: Supplements now use it too.

[00:56:22] Simon: Yeah, tons of neutropics, they have it. And so the Sun Goddess Matcha, you're tasting the L-theanine in it, which gives it the umami flavor. And then the greenness of it is, I think, very appealing to people. There's obviously a lot of chlorophyll as well when you consume such a green tea. The greenness of it has a lot to do with the level of oxidation as well. And chlorophyll is great because it's quite purifying.

[00:56:52] Luke: I like the matcha lattes. My wife makes them real. I don't even know what she uses for the creamy part, but it's so good.

[00:57:00] Simon: It has a natural creaminess.

[00:57:02] Luke: Does it?

[00:57:02] Simon: Yeah, yeah.

[00:57:04] Luke: Because I like the flavor. It's a mild bitter. But when you give it a little bit of sweetness and a little creaminess, it's like there's nothing like that. It's the best.

[00:57:14] Simon: Totally. I think Nandaka is the pinnacle of the achievement for us, though. That's a product we launched last year. So it has the two pu-erh teas that I talked about.

[00:57:23] Luke: I had one this morning.

[00:57:24] Simon: Yeah. Both the green and the black. It's basically suspended in this ceremonial cacao from Peru. And we've managed to create a powder that has a 30% cacao butter content that's naturally occurring.

[00:57:40] Luke: Oh, nice.

[00:57:41] Simon: Yeah.

[00:57:42] Luke: So you get a liposomal effect from the fat carrier.

[00:57:47] Simon: Yes, exactly.

[00:57:48] Luke: That's cool.

[00:57:49] Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's the lipids that act as the phenomenal delivery system for whether it's the antioxidants or the active ingredients in the mushrooms that we have through the gut lining. And so milk and tea happens a lot in Tibet. It's actually the basis of Bulletproof coffee also.

[00:58:10] Luke: Right.

[00:58:11] Simon: But ceremonial cacao powder-- and everybody strips out the butter normally because it destabilizes the product. So it's like shorter shelf life, more unstable. So nobody wants that.

[00:58:24] Luke: Is that what alkalized cacao means? I see that term a lot.

[00:58:29] Simon: I don't know about that.

[00:58:30] Luke: If you get Nestle's Quik or if you look at products that aren't ceremonial, great cacao, just like regular, I guess, cocoa, it'll be alkalized cocoa. I always wondered what that is.

[00:58:42] Simon: Yeah. I don't know about that.

[00:58:44] Luke: Maybe it's part of that defating process or something.

[00:58:47] Simon: Maybe.

[00:58:47] Luke: If someone listening knows, shoot me a message and teach us.

[00:58:51] Simon: Exactly.

[00:58:52] Luke: One thing I noticed about the product that you just mentioned, that you pronounce Nandaka?

[00:58:57] Luke: Yes.

[00:58:58] Simon: Nandaka, yes. In preparation for this, I was like, I'm going to check the ingredients on this and see what they're working with. Because I like the taste of it and I just, I don't know, I trust your brand. So I haven't really got that psycho about looking at every ingredient. But one thing I noticed was that you're specifically indicating that you're using mushroom extracts versus mycelium and other fillers and things like that.

[00:59:24] So when it comes to the lion's mane and reishi mushrooms, these great traditional mushrooms, I interviewed a guy the other day, and he actually has got a company called Life Cykel, and they make liquid tinctures. And he did a demonstration where he showed-- he didn't name the brands, but a couple of very popular "medicinal" mushroom brands.

[00:59:44] And they're up to 90% starch. They're basically just like rice powder and they're 60 freaking dollars for a little bag of it. I was like, "Oh my God." So how did you get hip to that particular aspect of the medicinal mushroom market?

[01:00:01] Simon: Yeah. Everything we do is always based in traditional usage. And it goes back to that longitudinal cohort study substantiation thing for me. It's like there are enough products out there that if done properly, can provide you with the benefits that are substantiated based on thousands, hundreds of years of usage over very broad demographics, cohorts of people, very well substantiated health benefits.

[01:00:29] And so I tend not to use a ton of isolates in our products because the science is much weaker. And if you look at the traditional usage for mushrooms, overwhelmingly, it's with fruiting bodies. People that don't know, the fruiting body is the stuff above the ground.

[01:00:47] The mycelium is the root structure below. And I think that there's never been a traditional usage that uses the roots because it's actually not separable. You'd literally just be eating soil. So traditionally, mycelium, the mushrooms grow in soil, you can't actually take it out of the soil.

[01:01:03] It's like these microscopic things. And I think that the mushroom industry has the most amount of fraud that I think we've ever seen in supplements just by the sheer size and volume and the amount of money being made. And a lot of it is based on this whole thing about mycelium.

[01:01:20] It has far fewer studies. It has far less of any traditional usage whatsoever. And meanwhile, there's a huge amount of money being charged to consumers to buy mycelium products. And the amount of disinformation by people that sound very credible is staggering-- really, really, really staggering.

[01:01:42] And so it's extremely hard to remove mycelium from the growth substrate, whether it's oat or sorghum or rice or whatever it is, sawdust. And because of that, you get a huge amount of it in the product because it's hard to remove. And ironically, a lot of these substrates test very high for polysaccharides and beta-glucans, which are some of the active compounds in the mushrooms.

[01:02:09] And a lot of these people who are like, "Hey, how good are your mushrooms?" "It's polysaccharides and beta-glucans." Those are the same people that are selling myceliated products. And they're like, "Look how high it is." And it's like, guess what? In oats, it's very high. It's mostly polysaccharides.

[01:02:26] Luke: That's funny.

[01:02:28] Simon: And also, it's very, very hard to test for the actual active ingredients in the mushrooms, in the reishi and the lion's mane because the standards for testing that stuff, the labs that can do it, the labs that can do it reliably, they are very few and it's very, very expensive. And there are some people that do it, but again, they're like super, super few and far between.

[01:02:48] And meanwhile there's like this mountain of really bad science and just wobbliness with substantiation that's pouring into the market. And it's much better regulated in Asia. In Hong Kong, if you're not selling cordyceps sinensis, which is the thing that grows on the caterpillar, you're not allowed to call it cordyceps at all.

[01:03:12] Luke: Really?

[01:03:13] Simon: Yeah, yeah. And here, any sort of cordyceps, any kind, whether it's mycelium or cordyceps militaris, whatever it is, you can call it cordyceps. So it's not as well regulated and it's unfortunate because, yeah, it's not good for the industry.

[01:03:31] Luke: Yeah, it gives it a bad name because people go spend a bunch of money on something and--

[01:03:34] Simon: They don't feel anything. It doesn't do anything.

[01:03:36] Luke: Zero benefits. So then a company that's doing it right is going to lose the market share. When meanwhile, they actually deserve the customer.

[01:03:47] Simon: It's very expensive too, by the way. Reishi fruiting body is very expensive. And so we use fruiting body powders as well as extracts, and we only use water extracts. Actually, ethanol extracts are even more concentrated and effective, but we don't want to use it.

[01:04:03] So we use only water extracts and combine the two. We also use reishi spore powder, which provides this full spectrum of the reishi mushroom. Reishi is the ultimate. That's the one you want. That's the other bit of disinformation, is that there's adaptogenic everything.

[01:04:22] And there's mushroom everything. But you look on what kind of mushrooms you're being used and it's like shiitake mushrooms. That's something you can buy by the pound in a supermarket. That's not the same as reishi, which is very hard to cultivate. Used to be only found in the wild. Very insanely expensive. Now the wild stuff is all gone.

[01:04:41] Luke: And slow growing too. Those mushrooms--

[01:04:42] Simon: It's very slow growing.

[01:04:44] Luke: Like chaga and reishi take freaking forever to grow into any substance.

[01:04:49] Simon: The people that will be critical of what I'm saying will say things like, "Well, chaga is not a fruiting body. It's this myceliated thing." And yes, it's true, but chaga is also harvested in the wild and there's no mycelium to be found or sold.

[01:05:08] And then they'll be like, "There's studies that are being done that the mycelium is just as good as the fruiting body." There's one that I've found that's substantive, and it's done on lion's mane. And that's taken generally to apply to every single mushroom out there, which obviously you can't use studies like that.

[01:05:25] Luke: Oh, interesting.

[01:05:25] Simon: Yeah.

[01:05:26] Luke: Another thing that has concerned me about tea in general is the actual bags. What can you tell me about that? Because it seems like-- again, I'm not someone that's just going and drinking, I guess mainstream bulk-produced tea, but every once in a while, if I'm somewhere traveling, it's like, oh, tea sounds nicer than water, even if it's not the best.

[01:05:48] But it's like the paper bags appear to me like they've probably been bleached or treated with some chemicals. And then you have those little plastic bags. And I'm like, "Am I getting microplastics if I put hot ass water in one of those little silken plastic bags?" Tell me about the bag part of tea. I know you guys have a different method of delivery and it's all that, but is there a way to make a tea bag itself that's not bad for you, or are they all crappy?

[01:06:22] Simon: There are muslin bags that I've seen and things like that. But yeah, I don't like the idea of brewing something that is not meant to be what I'm drinking. So whether it's the string or the staple or the bag, certainly the silken bags, they're just plastic. I don't want to--

[01:06:42] Luke: Do you think there's any microplastic contamination?

[01:06:44] Simon: 100%. It's been well studied. The silken tea bags definitely will provide you with a dose of microplastics.

[01:06:54] Luke: Why hasn't someone figured out how to make them out of bamboo or something that's not plastic, but has the same effect?

[01:07:01] Simon: Yeah. Dr. Palmer did a whole thing on the tea bags. Yeah, I don't know. It's one of those things. You could just use a strainer. Use a stainless-steel strainer. That's good. And it'll probably lead you to using better tea leaves as well, because the very fine stuff will go through the strainer and leave all this dust behind, which is in and of itself not a good sign. I think that the bag thing is not a great solution and it's actually, frankly, turned a lot of people away from tea because the experience is so poor.

[01:07:36] Luke: I think there's also just a loss of potency. You have dried herbs and then you're putting a tea. Generally comes in a little paper sachet.

[01:07:47] Simon: Yes. Oxidation.

[01:07:49] Luke: How long are those sitting around where the polyphenols and the things, the antioxidants, the things that we actually want the benefit and the flavor from sitting around for long enough? I think that's why a lot of tea is just colored water. The medicine has just evaporated out of it as well.

[01:08:06] Simon: The aromatics are gone. The tea bag cut, which is like the very finely ground up material that is in tea bags, you have to use that cut because people expect it to brew within a certain amount of time. It's like boop, boop, and you brewed it. Also, because it's cut into such a fine powder, you can also use less because the surface exposure to water is much higher with a powder.

[01:08:33] So you can use less. It brews faster. And of course, if you're going to sell that grade of tea, like I said, people aren't going to take the leaf in two buds and grind it into a powder for you. It's a huge waste. And so the minute you grind it, there's this oxidation, there's loss of a whole bunch of things, and then you're starting with lower quality input to begin with, and then you know you're doing it in the tea bag. So it's many reasons why it's not great.

[01:08:57] Luke: Right. It's like from the plant growing in the ground, the downstream dilution, by the time it actually gets to the end user is pretty brutal.

[01:09:07] Simon: It's pretty brutal.

[01:09:08] Luke: I guess that's why I've never gravitated toward it.

[01:09:09] Simon: That's the cost of convenience, right?

[01:09:11] Luke: Right. But then, like I said earlier in the conversation, you sit in a legitimate tea ceremony with someone. It's like, oh, what? Tea can be this? It's a totally different thing.

[01:09:22] So I think what you've tapped into is bridging the worlds of commercially available, high quality, ceremonial level of tea that is also as convenient. Because I don't know how to do what our friend Shiva does. If she handed me her tea set, I would get it wrong. Wrong temperature, wrong brewing time.

[01:09:42] Simon: Right.

[01:09:43] Luke: I don't have the interest or time to go learn that myself, but I actually enjoy the experience of it. Have you ever had a coca leaf tea?

[01:09:53] Simon: I've had coca leaf, but not the-- oh wait, I have had the tea with just fresh leaves. You put in the water. Yeah.

[01:09:59] Luke: Or a powder.

[01:09:59] Simon: I was gobbling that stuff up. When we went to Peru to visit the cacao farm, I was just munching on it.

[01:10:04] Luke: Yeah, me too. Me too. We just got back a couple of weeks ago, and it's one of those, like the US war on drugs casualties. It's such a beautiful plant. The coca plant is just, to people south of here, been sacred for thousands of years. Doesn't grow everywhere though.

[01:10:23] So it makes it unique to that region and those cultures, but there's such a historical relevance for it and reverence of it by those people. And it's so annoying to me that you can't get it here. Like it's illegal technically. It's classified as cocaine, solely because some idiot figured out that you could extract the alkaloids from that and make the worst freak-- well, maybe not the worst drug, but one of the worst drugs, in my opinion, having experienced quite a bit of cocaine, but without all of the gasoline and all the things that they used to make cocaine. In and of itself, it's just a beautiful plant, and I wish that regulations didn't prohibit you and Pique from making a beautiful coca tea.

[01:11:08] Simon: Well, that would be great.

[01:11:11] Luke: And I saw something the other day, I was actually in Rolling Stone, which is very generally propagandist outlet, but they did a really great article on how it was essentially just talking about how unfortunate it is that this plant has been demonized when it's so important to the people in those cultures from where it originates.

[01:11:34] And there was something in it. There is a group or groups that are pushing toward legislation that would allow the raw plant material to be declassified, which is pretty cool. Do you think if that happened, you would make a tea with it?

[01:11:51] Simon: I don't see why not. We'd certainly look into it, and it would have to be, obviously, 100% federally legalized.

[01:11:57] Luke: Yeah, of course.

[01:11:59] Simon: But yeah, we're interested in any plant that has benefits and can be consumed on an ongoing, sustained basis. Again, like the traditional usage is super important. Reishi has been identified in the Chinese material medica like it's this compendium of herbs as something that everybody can drink. Everybody can drink it on a daily basis. It's going to be fine.

[01:12:23] Luke: A tonic herb

[01:12:23] Simon: Yeah, exactly. It's not going to destabilize. It's not going to be good for some and bad for others. And again, of course, there are always niche cases in certain people where it doesn't work. But that's generally how we formulate. It's like if you follow the directions, it'll be beneficial for you.

[01:12:40] Luke: Yeah. In Central and South America, the coca leaf is a tonic herb.

[01:12:45] Simon: Yeah.

[01:12:46] Luke: I just don't like being told what to do. So it's like, if it was legal here, I probably would care less and I'd use it less frequently. But I think the thing that's interesting about the coca plant is it's a really beautiful stimulant, but it's not caffeine. It's its own thing.

[01:13:04] The alkaloid profile of that particular plant is really interesting, and it's also a really potent appetite suppressant to my own detriment. I chew on that stuff every day, all day long, probably more than I should.

[01:13:17] Simon: Oh, wow.

[01:13:17] Luke: It's quite expensive. But I just don't eat. My wife's like, "You want something to eat?" I'm like, "Eat? No."

[01:13:25] Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:13:26] Luke: I'm chewing on more of this stuff.

[01:13:27] Simon: Appetite suppressant.

[01:13:29] Luke: Yeah, it's pretty cool. Even it's known to be a weight loss supplement in some cultures.

[01:13:36] Simon: Cocaine does all those things.

[01:13:37] Luke: Yeah, exactly.

[01:13:38] Simon: Minus the drawbacks.

[01:13:40] Luke: Yeah, exactly. You don't lose your house and end up in jail from coca tea. Anyway, it's the way my curious mind works. Think, ah, what if someday? Man, that could be a really cool product, especially the way you're doing it with the quality control and making sure that it's really clean.

[01:13:56] And also your teas are so potent. I'm like, "Ooh, if it was really concentrated, that would be nice." Talk to me about the ginger, because you guys make a ginger tea, and I'm seeing all of this research that's emerging recently about this crazy plethora of benefits, anti-inflammatory, etc., of ginger. I like to make fresh ginger tea, super strong.

[01:14:20] Simon: Yeah. Nice.

[01:14:22] Luke: Just where it burns almost.

[01:14:23] Simon: You cut it and boil it.

[01:14:24] Luke: Yeah, exactly. But then I leave it on the stove top and I'm like, "Ooh, I'll boil it again tomorrow." Then it gets moldy. It's not sustainable. So I like your ginger tea because it feels strong enough that it's actually doing something.

[01:14:39] Not as strong as taking like a whole freaking root and boiling it up where it's that spicy, but it's not like-- again, sorry to shit on tea bags here, but if you get a ginger tea at Whole Foods or something, let's be fair. It doesn't really taste like much. It doesn't have that spicy flavor profile. So why did you do ginger, and how do you get it to be so strong in a tiny little sachet?

[01:15:03] Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So ginger's obviously super important in the Eastern diet. I literally eat ginger every single day. It's in the soup, in the vegetable, in every single dish.

[01:15:13] Luke: On every sushi plate?

[01:15:14] Simon: Yeah, every sushi plate. And so very, very important herb. And I drink this. I drink most of the things I make, but ginger and cinnamon is something that I actually need to drink in the winters. And that's, again, my counterbalance to having a disposition where my extremities get cold. I go skiing a lot.

[01:15:40] I'm always in cold places in the mountains in the winter. And so I developed this thing because it's-- ginger's just a super popular tea. It's a foundational thing that everybody will benefit from. In particular, it was something that was very part of my regimen, and I wanted to make the best available. Every product that we do, I want it to be the absolute best available. And so this product is actually biodynamic, the ginger and the cinnamon in it.

[01:16:10] Luke: Really?

[01:16:11] Simon: Yeah, yeah.

[01:16:12] Luke: Damn, son. That's the extra mile. I didn't even know that.

[01:16:15] Simon: Nobody knows. Nobody cares.

[01:16:17] Luke: I care.

[01:16:18] Simon: You care.

[01:16:19] Luke: I'm a sucker for anything biodynamic because I've been to biodynamic farms. I've toured them on a couple of occasions, and it's like, whoa, we're on a whole other level.

[01:16:28] Simon: Totally new level. Yeah.

[01:16:29] Luke: Organic's nice, but it's questionable. But when you get into the biodynamic range, you're getting into the mystical, animus of the human relationship with the earth. It's a whole different thing.

[01:16:43] Simon: And it's something that when you're cultivating in the land, is healing the earth at the same time. So you're not taking.

[01:16:53] Luke: I remember one I went to-- there's so many different interesting things about biodynamic farming, but I've been a couple times to a beautiful, I guess it's a resort. It's just an amazing property that happens to have a hotel on it called Cuximala in Mexico.

[01:17:09] Simon: Ooh, Cuixmala.

[01:17:10] Luke: They grow all of their own produce on the property there. And so they have a biodynamic farm. And the thing I remember that was so interesting, just the way everything's rotated and it has so much to do with astronomy. But one of the coolest things was they had this rabbit house, and then they have the rabbits on this little elevated perforated platform, and that's where they hang out and that's where they go poop.

[01:17:35] And then there's these collection trays underneath the rabbits specifically to catch all their poop to make the preparations. And then there's a strange certain species of bee that make their hives in a tree. And then that is one of the integral parts of mixing that with the specific rabbit poop.

[01:17:59] It just goes on and on. I couldn't do justice by explaining it, but when you look at how specific every little thing is in biodynamic farming and how there's so much synergy between all of the animals and insects and the soil microbes and the cosmos, it's just like, what is happening? It's so cool.

[01:18:20] Simon: It's very, very cool. Super deep. It sounds like this farm may have evolved the process and localized it. I don't know, because I don't know enough about the details. But if you even deviate on one of those things, then you can't be certified.

[01:18:37] And so many incredible farms, and some of the greatest wine producers in the world in Burgundy, they only adhere to the philosophy, but they don't adhere 100% to the technique, which is perfectly fine too. Because there's some level of localization or there might be some incredible weather event or some incredible pest event. And it's like if you deviate that one time, then--

[01:18:58] Luke: Then you lose the certification. So at Cuixmala, they're not selling their food. It's just for the guests.

[01:19:05] Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think it's even cooler actually, that they adapt it to the local availability of certain bee, certain flower, the rabbits. Because you have to understand what the hell's going on and how it works to be able to do that properly.

[01:19:19] Luke: Yeah.

[01:19:20] Simon: Yeah, it's amazing. Rudolph Steiner created that because in the early 1900s, the government and the farmers went to them and said, "These things that we've been growing for decades, probably multi-generationally, the yields are lower and the taste is shit. They don't taste like the way they used to. The land is sick. Help us heal it." And that was 110 years ago.

[01:19:45] Luke: That's when it was much less sick.

[01:19:46] Simon: Yeah. Imagine how far we've come since then. It's scary.

[01:19:53] Luke: If you AB test industrial organic produce, for example, and biodynamic, to avoid placebo, you'd have to do a blind taste test. But I swear, man, biodynamic mango or banana, it's like what? You feel like you've never tasted one before.

[01:20:13] Simon: Yes, yes.

[01:20:14] Luke: It's like, what is this? It's a different experience.

[01:20:18] Simon: Yes, 100%. Even just farmer's market tomato versus a supermarket tomato, huge difference.

[01:20:25] Luke: Totally. So you managed to find biodynamic ginger.

[01:20:29] Simon: Cinnamon as well.

[01:20:30] Luke: And the cinnamon?

[01:20:31] Simon: So they're from Sri Lanka, and those two herbs go together. Both have a--

[01:20:36] Luke: Does your ginger tea have cinnamon in it?

[01:20:38] Simon: Yeah.

[01:20:38] Luke: Oh, I didn't realize that.

[01:20:39] Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the idea is that both of them are directionally synergistic and similar in their properties of warming and having similar effects on the body physiologically, cardiovascular support and all those great things.

[01:21:01] Luke: Both great digestive too, right?

[01:21:04] Simon: Yes, 100%.

[01:21:05] Luke: Blood sugar, bile stimulation, stuff like that.

[01:21:08] Simon: Yes, yes, yes, yes. There's also this concept of having complimentary herbs together because singular versions, one, they're less interesting and more one dimensional. But having synergistic herbs formulated together leads to actually better absorption and better benefits.

[01:21:30] And so our ET 2, Electric Turmeric 2 has black pepper in it, which significantly increases the bioavailability of the curcumin. And so in our formulation, we're very thoughtful. And obviously referencing traditional how these things come together also, what's been used for very long periods.

[01:21:51] Luke: What do your parents think of what you do?

[01:21:54] Simon: My dad, he started a nightclub.

[01:21:58] Luke: Really?

[01:21:58] Simon: Yeah, a very famous one in Singapore called Zouk. It was one of the longest, continuously successful nightclubs in the world. And I think it was very surprising to him when I started a health foods business. Because in many ways, it's the opposite of what he does.

[01:22:16] I get up early and meditate and drink tea, and he stays up late and drinks alcohol. I like silence and nature sounds, and he likes DJ music. I love DJ music too. I'm very into music. But as a calling, those couldn't be more opposite. So I would say that for him, it's probably very surprising.

[01:22:37] I think that for him to see me build a brand that is successful probably makes him quite proud. But I think some part of him had always wanted me to do what he does, as parents do. And I think there's definitely a lot of disappointment about that. But as time goes on, those things evolve.

[01:22:56] My mom on the other hand has, from day one, been hugely supportive and a proponent. She was the one that when I made her try the Pu'er tea crystal when it was in that funny bag, she's like, this could be Coca-Cola someday. She's like, go--

[01:23:11] Luke: She saw the vision, huh?

[01:23:12] Simon: Yeah. She's like, "Go make it Coca-Cola." And she's constantly pushing and supporting and helping just envisioning really. It's like, go and make the Chinese Coca-Cola. Make people healthy, whatever. Constantly. And so she's been very consistently supportive.

[01:23:33] Luke: So going back to the ceremonial aspect of tea, there's one side of that, of having to actually brew and steep the tea. And you have people sit down and you pass out little tea cups and there's a communal somewhat of a ritual to varying degrees, right?

[01:23:55] Simon: Yes.

[01:23:56] Luke: But then that lacks the convenience, if you want to just live up and tea real quick. It doesn't really work that way, but we're losing the communal part of it in a sense. How would you recommend, or how do you-- because your teas are so instantaneous and don't require any preparation. They're super convenient, which is what makes them awesome, or one of the things.

[01:24:18] Simon: Yeah.

[01:24:19] Luke: How could we use, say, Pique tea but honor some of that communal or ritual, ceremonial kind of tradition? Because I'm guilty of never doing that. Like I said, I have hot water on tap. Boom. Make a Pique tea real quick. I don't sit with friends and like, "Let's have tea." It's just like, “Oh, you want a tea?” “Yeah, whatever.” It's just another great drink.

[01:24:42] Simon: Yeah, yeah.

[01:24:43] Luke: But there's not a lot of, I don't know, presence that I really enjoy, like in a tea ceremony, for example.

[01:24:48] Simon: Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because that ceremonial component of tea is very-- common is not the right word, but it's very well integrated into social interactions in the East. So in a lot of people's houses in China, more so than Hong Kong, but even in Hong Kong in a lot of people's houses, you go to the office, they'll sit you down at a table that's designed for having tea at.

[01:25:17] There's drainage. There's all of the utensils. There's this and that, and there's a collection of the teas, and they'll come and introduce this year's spring harvest of whatever, whatever from this mountain. Special, precious thing the friend gave me. Let me share it with you.

[01:25:32] And this gesture of friendship and generosity to have this experience. And then the brewing of it, all of that, is great and all, but often not too much emphasis on that. Because this is just brewed and prepared. And that's the end of it, actually. Because what follows is the conversation and the engagement that ensues.

[01:25:53] And there might be some appreciation. "Oh, this is wonderful. Take a whiff." But getting deeper than that is like getting into a geeking out session over the tea, which is about connoisseurship, but that's not the norm, right?

[01:26:06] There is that, obviously. There is that, but that's not the norm because the norm is office interactions, inviting guests to your home friends, whatever. And so there's not too much emphasis on these beautiful utensils and the smell and the color and all that stuff. You get over that quickly.

[01:26:21] But I think what's very profound and what's important and relevant for us is that the nature of the interaction that follows can be very different. And it's basically what we're doing now. It's like a conversation that is heightened by certain characteristics. Not being over caffeinated, I think, is nice. I think I got a little bit too caffeinated, because I caffeinated this morning and then I drank half of this. So I'm speaking faster, a little excited.

[01:26:46] Luke: Really? You noticed that?

[01:26:48] Simon: Yeah, a little bit. A little bit.

[01:26:49] Luke: This is our first conversation, so I don't know what your zone feels like, but I feel like we've had a good flow going.

[01:26:55] Simon: Yeah. The speed of my talking is the sign. And my wife will be like, "You're talking too fast." But the conversation that follows is like you're alert but calm. You're not overly amped up and just hard charging, going crazy.

[01:27:16] And it's this mildly stimulating conversation that happens over a beverage where it's like, you're calm. You have clarity. You're alert, and you're engaged basically. And so I think that the benefits of tea in that regard are really wonderful because it's not like the morning coffee where you're like, take it, and you're ready to charge and go, sort of a thing.

[01:27:38] It's actually very conducive to conversation and engagement. And that's the norm in Asia, like I mentioned, because there's not too much emphasis on the ritual and stuff. The ritual and stuff, I think the norm is that that's just the pathway to getting a good cup of tea. So we're going to go and do all this to get back.

[01:27:57] Luke: But it's built into the social structure. It's like we're not just sitting here. We're sitting here having a tea.

[01:28:04] Simon: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[01:28:06] Luke: So there's a unifying micro activity that's creating the space for flow and for conversation and community. Many people obviously use alcohol for that purpose. Hey, let's go grab a drink.

[01:28:21] Simon: Right. And it's a different interaction with alcohol.

[01:28:24] Luke: You got that right.

[01:28:25] Simon: Yeah, totally different.

[01:28:26] Luke: Yeah, very much so.

[01:28:27] Simon: You lose the inhibitions and stuff. But I think what we did with the tea, where it's like-- the beginning part could be the same as coffee, where it's like, I got this bean from somewhere. It's like Pique tea, this crystal, blah, blah, blah. And just say some things about how it's made.

[01:28:42] So there's a connection to it. This is where the product came from. This is how it's made, 250-year-old tea trees, whatever. And then of course you can appreciate the aromatics and the flavor and whatnot. But then I think that's where it ends, the similarity with coffee, where the benefits of tea are very different than the benefits of coffee.

[01:29:04] And I think that level of stimulation for me is much more preferred than the stimulation of coffee, frankly. I think that everyone that's doing podcasts should drink tea instead of coffee.

[01:29:15] Luke: I have to choose coffee wisely. It's funny. The other day, I don't want to say it's the first time, but first time in many years, I sat here and actually had a black coffee just because the guest, that's what he wanted when he came in. And I thought, you know what? I didn't feel too anxious that day. If I'm anxious and I drink coffee, it's not a good idea.

[01:29:33] Simon: It's not good for podcasting.

[01:29:34] Luke: But I was super chill. I don't know, just in the mood. And you know what? I sat and sipped it, just like I've sipped your tea here. It was really nice. But I feel like I got lucky that day. Because in the past, when I would drink coffee and try to do a podcast, I'd have the experience that you're describing and I'm just like, "I feel like my breathing gets shallow." I'm just coming out of my skin a little bit more than I'd like to. But to your point, this kind of tea is a really nice social imbibing.

[01:30:06] Simon: Yeah, exactly. Social imbibing where it's not like alcohol. It's like calm alertness. I think it's also nice when it gets cold. Cold coffee is not great, and then there's--

[01:30:19] Luke: My tea's been cold for a half an hour. I'm still enjoying it.

[01:30:21] Simon: Yeah. I think with the coffee too, there's like, oh crap, I drank too much. Or like, oh no, I'm out. And I don't like either of those feelings, is like you don't want to feel like, oh shit, I drank too much. Or like, oh no, I'm out. I need more. Then I can't sleep. I think tea is much more chill like that while keeping you alert.

[01:30:42] Luke: For sure. Talk to me about the timing in terms of getting the most out of tea, in terms of the health benefits. Do we want to drink tea with the little food, after the food, before? Are there any guidelines or rules on it?

[01:30:57] Simon: Yeah, there definitely are. A lot of people are actually very sensitive. Their stomachs are sensitive to tea. And drinking tea on an empty stomach can make them nauseous.

[01:31:08] Luke: Really?

[01:31:09] Simon: Yeah.

[01:31:09] Luke: From the tannins or something?

[01:31:11] Simon: It could be like too much caffeine. It could be like the tannins. It could be like the polyphenols. It's very potent. Our tea is potent. It's strong, as you know. It's not like a very diluted, watered down experience.

[01:31:24] Luke: It doesn't taste like colored water. There's definitely something there.

[01:31:25] Simon: Yeah. You're getting a significant amount of caffeine, polyphenols, the tannins. It's a lot to drink on an empty stomach, so some people can't handle it. I tell people like, never chug your tea. Generally, don't chug anything, but especially don't chug your tea if you're not familiar with how your body reacts to it because it is a very powerful super food.

[01:31:57] The things that instantly fix that, if you want to drink tea on an empty stomach is to add some sort of cream or milk, whatever, to it. That instantly changes everything. And so you'll be able to drink it on an empty stomach. Nandaka is amazing because of the cacao butter. You can actually drink it empty stomach fast.

[01:32:15] You'll be fasted to lunch, not have to eat anything. The cacao butter acts like that creamer lipid thing. Yeah, so the timing matters. Empty or full stomach matters. Generally, the safest way is like eat something. Doesn't have to be a lot, or use milk. Not on an empty stomach.

[01:32:37] After lunch is an amazing time to drink tea because it helps you just-- one, the hot water is great, as opposed to ice water, which a lot of people drink. It's like everything congeals into your intestine, all the grease and everything. The hot water helps you just kind of rinse it out. Tea also prevents absorption of lipids.

[01:32:55] Luke: Wow. That's interesting. I never thought about that, if you have a fatty meal and then drink a bunch of ice water. That's funny. I didn't think about that.

[01:33:03] Simon: Yeah, yeah.

[01:33:04] Luke: It's like if you try to rinse bacon grease off of pan with cold water.

[01:33:11] Simon: Precisely.

[01:33:11] Luke: You're not going to get very far.

[01:33:11] Simon: Only the intestines are not as smooth as a pan surface. It's much less smooth than that with many crevices.

[01:33:20] Luke: Yeah. Lots of twists and turns.

[01:33:22] Simon: Many twists and turns, yes.

[01:33:23] Luke: That's interesting. We've touched on, way earlier in this conversation, longevity in some of these places like Hong Kong and other places on the planet where tea is so prevalent. Me included, I don't think we here in America really think of tea as having health benefits.

[01:33:45] Simon: Yeah. That's a crazy thing.

[01:33:46] Luke: Yeah. Give me some of the research for the science nerds out there. What are some of the actual health supporting or longevity supporting benefits of tea if it's done the right way and has the potency and all that?

[01:33:59] Simon: Yeah, yeah. I don't want to go into non-compliant territory, but--

[01:34:04] Luke: No medical claims. I understand.

[01:34:05] Simon: Yeah, no medical claims.

[01:34:06] Luke: You can speak in general terms.

[01:34:07] Simon: General terms. First of all, there's a ton of research out there. So all the things that I can't say can easily be Googled, like health benefits of tea, and there are literally millions. I think that the key thing for people to know is that you have to drink a certain amount. And so once a week doesn't cut it.

[01:34:28] And so if you look at Harvard School of Public Health, they have a guideline, and it's minimum two to three cups of tea a day to experience any of the benefits that have been experienced by millions of people, tons of cultures for any myriad of health issues and health benefits.

[01:34:49] Luke: Is in the cultures where we have seen longevity. Tea is integral to those cultures, and so it's something that's done not only every day, but probably multiple times per day.

[01:34:59] Simon: Precisely, precisely. And so I don't know if the two, three of cups are loose leaf or they're tea bags. Obviously, there's a difference. Obviously, the higher quality of the tea, the less you need to drink.

[01:35:13] But in China and in a lot of Eastern countries, certainly in Japan, in Hong Kong, probably in Korea, definitely in Taiwan, you walk into these places and you're served of tea in a restaurant, in an office, in a home, everywhere. And then in China specifically, people carry their tea leaves around often. You'll see them with a bottle with tea leaves and they just keep adding water.

[01:35:38] They're not brewing fresh tea leaves every single infusion. That's way too much. Nobody does that. And so when they're drinking 10 to 20 cups, they may have refreshed their tea leaves two, three times a day, but they just keep re infusing again and again and again. But because it's loose leaf tea that's higher quality, it's going to take more to extract stuff out of it too, right?

[01:35:58] Luke: Right, right. Wow, interesting. I wanted to ask you, oh yeah, EGCG, which is, I think one of the constituents of green tea. What does that have to do with skin health?

[01:36:13] Simon: Oh, yeah.

[01:36:13] Luke: I'm trying to find the correlation there. I was looking at my notes. I was like, "I've heard that, but I don't know." Are we putting green tea on our face, or is this an in inside from the inside out effect?

[01:36:25] Simon: First of all, EGCG is a very common ingredient in skincare products.

[01:36:32] Luke: Oh, okay. So it is used topically.

[01:36:35] Simon: Yes. And so green tea, EGCG, which is the most well-known, identified catechin, which is one of the green tea antioxidants, is also isolated, put in a lot of skincare products.

[01:36:46] Ironically though, catechins are actually not bioavailable at all in the body. It's actually like the metabolite. So it's actually when you drink tea, the gut microbiome is eating the catechin, metabolizing it, and it's the metabolite that's bioavailable and actually has a health benefit, which is very surprising, and few people know this.

[01:37:14] Luke: It's interesting, like butyrate. When your gut bacteria eats, they make butyrate and it's the butyrate that's good for you, not the bacteria themselves.

[01:37:23] Simon: Yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. And in this case, not even the input. And so it's conceivable that like the EGCG that's topical has no impact whatsoever, but maybe it's the microbiome on the skin that makes it useful.

[01:37:36] Luke: Oh.

[01:37:36] Simon: But yeah, it's good because the green tea catechin has been associated-- its impact on cellular regeneration, revitalization has been well documented. And so in the same way that it's great for immune support, it leads to this idea of youthfulness in skin. And it's like everyone wants to look younger.

[01:38:10] And so green tea antioxidants, scavenge free radicals. There's so many environmental stressors, and so green tea helps defend you against that. And then obviously, the cellular revitalization is very good for skin and for health.

[01:38:18] Luke: I'm glad I remember to ask you that. Because I see that around and I always wondered what the connection there is. For those listening--

[01:38:25] Simon: Very anti-aging, let's just put it that way, on multiple dimensions.

[01:38:31] Luke: Yeah, for sure. For those listening, you can go to piquelife.com/luke, and get up to 20% off, plus a free starter kit. And the starter kit is the little frother?

[01:38:44] Simon: Yes, it's a frother and a beaker.

[01:38:46] Luke: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:38:46] Simon: There's an alchemist beaker. So there are gradation lines.

[01:38:50] Luke: It's funny. Even just without knowing you were coming here today, I use that little beaker all the time because I can measure things. It's like my little measuring cup when I'm making my various potions. I find I actually use that thing a lot.

[01:39:02] Simon: Right. So it's like trying everybody to be able to make master level sort of tea. It's like the crystals, there's no brewing. If you get the temperature right and the amount of water right, you're going to produce a great cup of tea. So the beaker is meant to help.

[01:39:17] Luke: Awesome. That's great. Okay, well, I think I've covered everything. No, God darn it. There's one more thing. Fasting.

[01:39:27] Simon: Yes.

[01:39:27] Luke: Which I admittedly wish I would do more often, but it's inconvenient. Is there any world where tea is supportive during a fast to, if anything, to make it less boring so you're not just like on a water fast? And does tea break your fast? Is there any research or do you have any experience on the intersection between fasting and world of teas?

[01:39:52] Simon: Yes, definitely. Well, we have a line of fasting teas that we developed with Dr. Jason Fung?

[01:39:57] Luke: Oh, really.

[01:39:58] Simon: Yeah.

[01:39:59] Luke: Oh, cool. Well, you're the right guy to ask.

[01:40:01] Simon: He basically wrote the book on fasting, so he treated hundreds, I don't know, maybe 1,000 patients using intermittent fasting, and tea was something that he commonly would recommend. And the reason for that is because, one, it doesn't break your fast.

[01:40:15] Traditional tea from Camellia sinensis, traditional tea doesn't break your fast. And two, it helps promote satiety, so it actually makes you feel you're full without eating. And then it provides variety. Variety is really nice if you're fasting.

[01:40:38] Luke: Yeah. No kidding.

[01:40:39] Simon: You know what I mean? Basically, there's water and there's no water. But if you can add water and different types of tea, it actually helps a lot with passing time and just staying fasted.

[01:40:50] And then the last thing is that it actually supports a lot of the benefits, the goals of fasting. So burning fat for energy, all those sorts of things. And so, yeah, this is a huge amount of correlation actually. And I think that in a lot of religious practices, tea is also one of the things that are allowed. Yeah, so we have a line of fasting teas.

[01:41:14] Luke: Epic. I didn't know that. Well, I'm going to keep that in mind next time I get up the courage to do a fast. I feel like I've been wanting and needing to do a proper water fast for a while now, and it's never a good time to start fasting.

[01:41:28] Simon: I've been wanting to do it for years too.

[01:41:29] Luke: You know what I'm saying? You're like, oh, maybe I'll do it starting next Monday. It's like, look at the calendar. Nah, I can't do it next week.

[01:41:35] Simon: Yeah.

[01:41:36] Luke: I think it's one of those things you just have to put on your calendar. No matter what life throws at you, you're doing it, and you just deal.

[01:41:41] Simon: That's like me and Vipasana meditation. I've signed up like four times probably to do it.

[01:41:47] Luke: To go on one of the retreats?

[01:41:49] Simon: Yes. And I'm not, specifically the Vipasana. The only time I fast is on long haul flights. I literally just drink water.

[01:41:57] Luke: Do you find that helps?

[01:41:58] Simon: Insanely, yeah.

[01:41:59] Luke: It does?

[01:42:00] Simon: Insanely so, yeah.

[01:42:01] Luke: With jet lag and--

[01:42:03] Simon: With jet lag, recovery, immunity, literally everything.

[01:42:05] Luke: Wow. Because I've heard that for a long time, and I'm not good at that. For some reason, I think the anxiety of dealing with travel makes me crave sugar, which is the anti-fat.

[01:42:18] Simon: Probably the worst. I think drinking would be worse.

[01:42:21] Luke: Yeah, yeah. But people say, "Oh, you want to fast or at least eat keto, being ketosis while you're flying." And I'm like, "Eh, does chocolate with a lot of sugar count?"

[01:42:31] Simon: I do sometimes do dark chocolate, but not even these days.

[01:42:35] Luke: Yeah. All right. I got one final question for you. Who have been three teachers or teachings, philosophies, etc., in your life that have contributed to who you are today?

[01:42:47] Simon: Wow. Teachers or philosophers. So many come to mind.

[01:43:06] Luke: Both teachings, ideas, people.

[01:43:08] Simon: Yeah. My whole thing is actually the comparative study between Chinese and Indian spirituality. I've read a ton of the Bhagavad Gita. So in that regard, Paramahansa Yogananda is definitely a guru figure in my life. The daoist text, I've read.

[01:43:31] Obviously, Lao Tzu would be a figurehead, but I spent a lot of time with the I Ching, with different daoist texts. And then the third would be people. My two Tai Chi teachers-- Fong Ha in Berkeley and Sam Tam in, in Vancouver. I wish I had more time to spend with them, but they've been instrumental in opening the doorway to a lot of these things. Fong was like, you got to read autobiography of a Yogi and then go do the Vipassana. I still haven't done the Vipassana yet. But yeah, those would be three major influences.

[01:44:07] Luke: Beautiful. Love it. I think if someone got a hold of those three general ideas, pretty good life. It's aspirational influences there. You just take any one of those, it'd probably really have a very positive impact.

[01:44:25] Simon: Yeah.

[01:44:26] Luke: I have a copy of the Bhagavad Gita man, and it's like the Bible. Every couple years I'd be like, "Ah, okay, I'm going to really do it this time." And I get a little ways into it and it's just like, oh man, this is hard. Where's the audio book?

[01:44:40] Simon: I just read a bit every morning before I meditate.

[01:44:42] Luke: Is that what you do?

[01:44:43] Simon: Yeah. Just one or two [Inaudible].

[01:44:44] Luke: Take it piecemeal?

[01:44:45] Simon: Totally.

[01:44:49] Luke: I have an easier time taking someone's interpretation of a very dense text like that. I love a spiritual teacher named Dr. David R. Hawkins. And he would refer to the Bhagavad Gita a lot, and even the Bible sometimes. And I've read a lot of metaphysical teacher, Emmett Fox, who's whole thing was about breaking down the Bible. So it seems that there's a degree of separation between me and the teaching.

[01:45:14] I can digest it much easier than going to the source provided I choose wisely and get someone who's not coming up with an erroneous or fallacious interpretation of it. So kudos to you if you can even take a little bit of Bhagavad Gita at a time.

[01:45:30] Simon: Yeah. Well, no, I do read Paramahansa Yogananda's version of it. So he's explaining the verses. But the verses are there. You know what I mean? But even something like the I Ching, Confucius wrote a commentary on it. It's just that even that's so-- and it's part of the I Ching original text now, but even that is so ancient.

[01:45:53] By the way, I find that doing it in piecemeal or doing it through application is very helpful. So the I Ching I got into by using it as a Book of Oracles. There's a famous version that Carl Jung wrote the forward of, Richard Wilhelm's translation. In the forward, he's like, "I was told to write this forward by my good friend Richard Wilhelm. This is a Book of Oracles. I'm a man of science. And I thought, what better way to access this book than to use it as a Book of Oracles and ask it, how should I write this forward?"

[01:46:24] And so he casted the coins and he got an answer, and then he laid it out and he's like, "How can you refute the truth and the veracity and how profound this answer is and how relevant it is, and specifically, how specific of an answer it is."

[01:46:24] So that's how I got into it. And I just cast coins. And then I ask it questions. But then over time I stopped doing that and I just-- then I got into reading it cover to cover, which is really freaking hard. It's like virtually impossible.

[01:47:00] Luke: The I Ching?

[01:47:01] Simon: Yeah.

[01:47:01] Luke: Yeah. I've never tried that.

[01:47:03] Simon: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really hard, really hard.

[01:47:06] Luke: Pick it up in the spiritual bookstore. Oh yeah, I've heard of this. And it's like, okay.

[01:47:10] Simon: Try casting the coins. You'll be blown away.

[01:47:12] Luke: Really?

[01:47:12] Simon: Blown away by the experience.

[01:47:14] Luke: My wife's big on pulling cards. She likes the Oracle decks so much so that she created one.

[01:47:20] Simon: Wow. Okay.

[01:47:21] Luke: So we're no strangers to that woo woo in this house, as you might have guessed based on the environment.

[01:47:28] Simon: Totally.

[01:47:28] Luke: That's super cool, man.

[01:47:29] Simon: The coin method, you can find on online. Just Google it, three coin method. And then get the Wilhelm version. That's important.

[01:47:36] Luke: Noted. We're going to put all these in the show notes, by the way, guys. And the show notes, I forgot to mention earlier, will be lukestorey.com/piquelife. That's P-I-Q-U-E-L-I-F-E. And of course, everything we talked about will be clickable in the show description on your podcast apps, family. So feel free to do more research and touch back to some of the things we've covered today.

[01:48:01] Well, man, it's been lovely to meet you. Great conversation, as I knew it would be. And yeah, I'm just stoked, man. I'm stoked to finally find the man behind these amazing teas that I've been sipping on for the past few years.

[01:48:13] Simon: Thank you so much for having me here. It's been a great pleasure and loved this conversation so much. I hope it doesn't get me into trouble.

[01:48:22] Luke: I think we played it pretty safe. I've definitely had way crazier people on the show, so you're still in the very tame territory, my friend.

[01:48:30] Simon: Right, right. Good.