“上善若水. 水善利万物而不争, 处众人之所恶,故几于道.”
The supreme goodness is like water, nourishing all creatures without competing with them, it gathers in the lowest places where men despise, therefore it is like Dao (the way).
Water is the perfect substance according to Daoism. Water always seeks the lowest point and always takes the shape of any vessel into which it is poured. Water always flows downhill, and it always flows around any obstacle. Water seems to be the weakest substance, but it’s really the strongest, a single drop could pierce through rocks and glaciers.
So referring to that particular verse in Tao Te Ching, what does it mean to lead a life that flows like water and harmonizes with nature and how are we going to do so in order to absorb these virtues and attain the way?
Concept
Taoism had a great impact on the development of herbal medicine. Hence, with the use of herbal teas, we aim to achieve wellness inside out. By creating a series of herbal tea for each virtue presented in the philosophy, targeting a particular aliment in us that is hindering our path of attaining “enlightenment” would help us do so.
These teas can be viewed as an antidote for our wellness and also to substitute the virtues and values that are missing from us which we should be learning from this Chinese philosophy verse from Tao Te Ching.
Packaging
Each tea was represented by a particular herb / flower and the graphic elements shown was created with only organic shapes. This is to show how fundamental organic shapes are and with simple continuous rotation and scaling, they are able to create such beautiful patterns. These shapes are like the virtues in Tao Te Ching, where everything links back to its most basic fundamental form, just like water, which takes in the form of anything that holds it.
Individual packaging are shaped in the form of a water droplet, and forms into a flower when all six of them are pieced up together.
As this is a school assignment, all characters and information appearing in this work are fictitious.
