hi,

thank you for taking the time to read this and connecting to a space of subtle bodies.

to introduce us separately, a space of subtle bodies is a teahouse on the unceded lands of the kulin nation, created to share the art, musings and wisdoms of camellia sinensis- or as we know it- tea.

we offer tea ceremony multiple times a week on a sliding scale basis for our people- with a great focus on our BIPOC diaspora communities and those that may too feel they slip through the cracks of our class dividing world.

we also function as a retail space, selling only wild cultivated teas from our trusted friends and family, woodfired teawares and various other handcrafted artefacts designed for a life of tea.

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a space of subtle bodies was created & sustained by myself, Cha Há Che.

I’m is a first generation ‘Australian’ born of Vietnamese descent. My mother migrated from Vietnam in the 1990s, having fled from Vietnam in the wake of war and poverty, in search for resource for her family back home. Quickly needing to assimilate into rural Australia and find her place in the working class, she struggled to settle into home while carrying her culture into the vastly indifferent environments of the country. This often cued a neglect of her cultural background.

I was born shortly after, into this environment without adequate backbone for cultural empowerment. I found it incredibly hard to step into my cultural identity at a young age. Afraid to be seen exposed in the open for the things I could not help or change, I took to oppressing parts of my identity that would been associated to my cultural roots. As one learns to harden to the outside world, a beckoning for softening did grow evermore present I have learnt however. The more I began to traverse the worlds of isolation growing up, the need for introspection paved ways to ally with myself and connect to interests and expressions that would inherently protect & allow me to hold something to that missing backbone.

I guess, the longer one proceeds on that path of enquiry and discovery, the more the path begins to purify- clearing the density and readily shining light on the core wounds that informs the ways one moves through the world. This would ultimately entice the acknowledgement of cultural neglect, rejection and the perpetuated suffering that trails behind such a path.This has very much became a way finder for me today.In this acknowledgement came a dire need to tend to. This would send me back to my mother’s homelands of Vietnam and soon into the mountains of the indigenous, known under the umbrella as the Bai Yue people.In this discovery of deep, deep cultural roots came to connection to tea, amongst other various mediums of belief, embodiment & intrinsic nature.

The path of cultural reclamation and recognition for the pains of our collective diaspora is what opens the door to our teahouse today. We create space built on the virtues and recognition of our ancestors, whomst have sacrificed their way for the better days of their young.