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I had a premonition one morning that I was going to die.

As I closed my apartment door, I took one last look and thought I might not make it back. Everything went as usual that day: work, udon lunch, attended a photo shoot, answered emails. My friend Shirley dropped by the office in the evening to collect me. I’ve been trying to get her to take me to this tea house that serves 500-year-old pu’er tea. This was the day.

As we made our way to Carnarvon Road, she said this tea shop has a stricter door policy than ZaZa. The shopkeeper has to like the look of you before deciding to open the door...or not.

The storefront was standard; the interior was saturated in deep red and traditional Chinese furnishings. The girl behind the counter walked to the gap of the sliding glass door, smiled then waved us away. Shirley untied her tight bun and let her long hair unravel. She signalled to convey she knew someone with long hair. The door slid open.

Inside the tiny shop, we watched the shopkeeper perform a Chinese tea ceremony. I smelled the pot: it was a young pu’er, which got more bitter with every pour. “The Master will be back later,” she said, still smiling. I pointed at the items encased under our glass table; a hand-carved jade show plate, adjustment mirrors, yellow jade beads... “They are not for sale,” she said in soft Chinese. “If The Master feels you belong to the item, he will give it to you.” In fact, nothing was for sale in the shop. “We promote Chinese culture,” she said. “How do you afford the rent?” I asked.

Before she could answer, The Master entered, his long mane half wrapped in a bun. He was dressed in black robes and cloth boat shoes and had beads draped around his neck. He had sharp black fingernails. He greeted Shirley then looked in my direction and studied me with crazy eyes. He greeted me in English before I spoke. “Thank you for having me here,” was all I could spit out. How did he know?

The shopkeeper poured tea and we sat in silence until he said: “You have cold lungs. You have cold lungs because of a clouded heart.” Truth is I’d had bronchitis all week and this was my first day of feeling better. He noted my age matter of factly then told me if I didn’t change my habits by the time I’m 35 I will have high blood pressure like one of my parents (my mother). There’s also a good chance I will have some sort of disease of the bone (my mother just had surgery for this). “Serve her some tea,” he told the shopkeeper. She brewed a thick cake of leaves in a clay pot and I took the customary three sips. This must be the 500-year-old pu’er, I thought – light, sweet, very weak, not like any pu’er I’ve tasted.

I was so entranced that I didn’t notice another woman had joined us. She stood silently in the corner. “You are a kind and decent person, but you have bad karma controlling your decisions. Someone broke your heart and now the demons who’ve been sitting in you for centuries, waiting for you to be weak enough, have taken over.” Whoa. “You are a great communicator, that is why I’m going to save you. I want you to save others, even if you have hatred for them. Show them mercy. But first I must clear the bad karma.”

The women lit incense and continually poured tea in my cup. The shopkeeper gently grabbed my arm and I willingly followed her to a Buddha. This is the Dalai Lama’s dagger, she said. “Bow.” I did. She gave me a chant to repeat for the next 20 minutes. The Master put on a CD and chanted on top of it. I was instructed to kneel in front of him. He placed his heavy hand on my forehead; I instantly felt his weight and beads of sweat formed all over. My knees, bare on the hard ground, carried my weight and started shaking. Sweat dripped into my eyes and left as tears. The chanting got louder. My knees were shaking uncontrollably. My thighs have never had so much of a workout. With incense surrounding my nostrils and the smoke locked in my lungs, I felt faint. After an excruciating half hour of heat and shaking, I fell to the ground. The women gasped. The Master helped me back to my knees. They hurt from the pressure, my clothing was soaked in sweat and I was out of breath. I felt stupid. The Master pulled up his sleeve. “You see this?” he said. I saw his throbbing vein. “I could feel all those people stabbing at you stab at me.”

I was helped back to my seat and more tea was poured. I had been cleared of my karma apparently.

I recounted the experience to a friend later that week. Her reply was a doubtful: “Are you sure that was 500-year-old-tea you were drinking?”

Idem, 13 Carnarvon Rd, Tsim Sha Tsui (no phone)

Illustration: Jonathan Jay Lee