Recently in tea philosophy~art~ritual Category

Aaron Fisher uses a silver teapot and antique Chinese tea bowls as an aesthetic and soulful treat

Many people cannot afford the time or extra expense of a vacation right now. But we all need some rest, to be sure. Years ago, when I was traveling in Bali, some Balinese people asked "Why do you Americans take vacations? We don't have big vacations, but we have a small vacation everyday when we see our friends and make music, art or a meal together."

This got me thinking that it is important to take a small vacation each day, and having a daily tea ritual fits nicely into this logic. While I don't see tea friends in person everyday, I do think of them when I have my tea, as I have bought or received tea ware from some of them.

My wood bark display dish was a gift from Shiu Yuen Li, a Singaporean teacher of tea culture who lives in Taiwan; my tea tray comes from my friend, Shiuwen Tai of Floating Leaves, my gaiwan and serving pitcher from Roy Fong of Imperial Tea Court, aroma cups from friends at Pure Puer who brought them back to me from Taiwan (the same which I now sell); and tasting cups from Peter Luong of Red Blossom.  The small ceramic figure of Lu Yu that graces my tea bench was a Christmas gift from my dear friend Norwood Pratt.  So when I have my daily tea, I feel the presence of all these special tea friends as well.

I offer up a cup of tea and the scent of an aroma cup in thanks for all the gifts of life so generously given to me. And perhaps even more than tea, gratitude offers the release from care that we seek from a vacation. 

If you don't have time to take an extended rest this summer, take your daily tea vacation....

Taiwan's revival of tea culture spans only about 30 years, since the early 1980's. Yet in that short time, several tea people have emerged as gatekeepers of the leaf on the emerald isle.

One such person is Shui Yun Li, a native of Singapore and teacher of tea culture in the capital city of Taipei who founded the organization "Chrysanthemum Teaism".  Her lovely venue for tea education feels as much Japanese as Chinese or Taiwanese, with rough "wabi" style furniture punctuating the dominant Ming and Qing Dynasty cabinets and tables that are carefully placed for both use and consideration in tea gatherings.

What is unique in Ms. Li's offerings are the public tea ceremonies that she coordinates with sponsorship and grant money from various tea merchants and other donors. Her students, many of whom are interior designers, architects, and film makers, are given instruction by Ms. Li about how people around the world create spaces for tea gatherings.  From this base of knowledge, Li's students create unique tea spaces that are used for public, outdoor tea gatherings, where tea is served and celebrated with dancers and other performers adding to the mystery and beauty of the gatherings.

Literature and art are invited guests as well. The concept of Indoor and outdoor space becomes blurred as they merge and bend to each other as gracefully as the dancers.

A slide show of events Ms. Li screened for me at her tea space brought back memories of how I felt when I first went to Spain and viewed Gaudi's architectural triumphs--buildings and landscape design so unusual as to inspire even the least creative person to expand all references to "reality" and "possibility" in art and in life.

The "tea room" designs created by the students under the direction of Ms. Li are sometimes very contemporary and at the same time in rhythm with centuries of traditional tea cultures found in Asia. Ming Dynasty tea bowls sit on brightly colored modern textiles laid on the ground as a tea "tableau" rather than a traditional tea table. Dramatic overhead lighting is screened through trees brought in to throw shadows on the scene and highlight the drama of the tea ware.  Dancers spin through the empty space like human mobiles or constellations in a dark and open sky.

I have yet to see anything similar to this being done in the United States, but we are ripe for this, I believe. Where are the tea loving dancers, writers, film makers, architects and interior designers with boldness and creativity? Come out, come out wherever you are!

Roy Fong, owner of Imperial Tea Court, has just come out with his long-awaited book, The Great Teas of China. We caught up with Roy to do a multi-part interview, with our first discussion focusing on puerh teas.

Click here to listen:

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For nearly four thousand years, China kept tea to herself. During the latter part of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), some Buddhist monks from Japan visited their Chan Buddhist counterparts in China, and discovered that drinking ground, whisked green tea (now known as matcha) could be an asset to their concentration and meditation practices as it was for that of the Chinese monks.

Japanese tea ceremony is based on such a meditation with tea, and its practice is meant to support awareness,  and harmony. Why, of all the plants in the world, is tea the one chosen by Chan, Taoist and Zen monks to assist in meditation? I went to the best source I know to find the answer.

"The medicinal properties of tea are extremely significant as to why tea is used as a beverage and for meditation," said Christy Bartlett, head of San Francisco's Urasenke Foundation.

"When tea was drunk in early Buddhist monasteries in China, they drank it for several purposes, and one was that it was considered to be a medicine that prolonged life and helped to keep people healthy. As well, caffeine stimulates and sharpens the senses during meditation or study", said Bartlett (below right, instructing a student in tea ceremony, also known as chado, chanoyu, or the way of tea).
 
"Then, by people gathering together and making tea for one another, it fostered a sense of community.  So in early Buddhist temples those were the associations made to drinking tea," she said.

We know that many plants are stimulants, but tea offers more than just stimulation, which could, by itself, hinder the steadiness and concentration required for good meditation practice. Instead, tea offers a relaxed alertness which aids in contemplation and meditation. Perhaps we can attribute this to tea's high concentration of the amino acid L-theanine --known for its ability to relieve mental and physical stress and to enhance cognition and awareness. Most botanists will tell you that the thousands of combined chemicals found in a single plant cannot be duplicated by another plant (or distilled or fabricated into pill form as a medicine). So what tea offers is a unique concert of chemicals that delivers wakefulness, awareness, relaxation, and perhaps something extra that cannot be named.

Asked about tea ceremony as a ritual, Bartlett was careful to correct the association: "Tea ceremony is not a ritual but a practice, a form.  It's like a score was written for the practice of making tea, and when we sit down, for example, and play a piece of music, which someone else might have written, we don't feel like we are doing a ritual.  When you play music or when you go to a dance performance, there is very little sense in that case of viewing it as a ritual, even though there is a predetermined sequence of gesture and motion through time. So I view tea the same way as that, not as a ritual but as something very simple and something that has a clear form to it."

Some people want to explore the world of connoisseur tea, but are not comfortable with the idea of brewing teas that do not come in tea bags.  Let's demystify the options here and save the planet, friends (for more, see my entry on "Tea's Carbon Footprint"). 

First, the only thing you really need in order to brew loose leaf tea is a device to strain the tea or rather separate the infused tea liquid from its leaves. There are several methods to choose from:

1. Porcelain cup with filter: For many people new to loose leaf tea, this is the most comfortable and familiar method of brewing tea.  You simply put tea leaves in the filter, place the fitted filter in the cup, then pour in hot water.  Steep for the allotted time, then remove filter (with leaves), and your tea cup will be filled with a lovely tea infusion. You can put the filter, with the used tealeaves, aside, and steep it again when you are ready. If your cup does not come with a filter, you can use a small strainer, found in almost any cooking store or even the supermarket. Easy peezey.

2. Tea pot (with its proprietary strainer or with a filter): The next most familiar method is the trusty tea pot.  You will find many choices, but optimally, you would use a glass, porcelain or ceramic teapot to brew white and green teas and porcelain, ceramic or yixing for oolongs, blacks and puerhs. Many tea pots have a built-in filter or some type of internal system at the interior base of the spout that will prevent tea leaves from escaping the tea pot.  If you have a tea pot that has no such filtering device, simply use a filter or strainer over your cup or serving vessel. You can find some very nice strainers made of bamboo and other non-metal materials (which is preferred).


3. Gaiwan:  Ahhhh, the gaiwan.... For those who are new to tea, the gaiwan can be either  enchanting or perplexing.  Once you learn how to use a gaiwan, you might never want to use a filtered tea cup or tea pot again.  The gaiwan comes from China, and comprises a saucer, a cup, and a lid.  In fact, it means "covered bowl" in Chinese.  Regardless, the lid of the gaiwan is used to cover the tea as it steeps, smell the tea, and also prevent the leaves from escaping the cup when the infusion is sipped or poured into a serving vessel.  To use a gaiwan is simple: put tea in the gaiwan.  Rinse the tea for 1 second with hot water, and pour off.  Pour hot water on the leaves and cover with the gaiwan lid.  You can also use the lid as a kind of paddle to nudge the tea leaves awake while the tea is brewing. 

Then either pour the infusion into a serving vessel or drink the leaves directly from the cup of the gaiwan, using the lid to hold back the leaves. I brought a gaiwan with me on a family trip, and my father blanched and asked "WHAT is THAT??.  Alas, the gaiwan is not for everyone.

4. Japanese tea bowl & whisk (for matcha): Tea has been prepared from ground green tea for more than a thousand years.  In China, it was whisked in a bowl. In Japan, it became the primary object of contemplation and practice in the famed Japanese tea ceremony, but you can lose the kimono if you wish, and simply whisk up some tea to elevate your mood. The bright green froth of a matcha brings great solace and energy to those who love this kind of tea.  To use this method: put a few small scoops (2-3 teasppons) of matcha powder in a ceramic tea bowl.  Pour hot water into the powder and whisk briskly (while you say "whisk briskly" briskly three times :>D ) with a bamboo whisk.  Stay tuned for more information on different kinds of matcha and different Japanese tea ceremonies (hint; there is a sencha ceremony as well).

In all, tea brewing can be taken very seriously and require a number of traditional tools, but it can also be extremely simple and require nothing more than a cup and a filter.  This is the beauty of tea.

 Taiwanese teas, particularly oolongs, have a reputation for their fragrance, softness, and unique characteristics.  We came upon a couple of rare Taiwanese oolongs that come from ancient, wild-growing tea trees that were undiscovered until just recently. Bon Teavant's first "Tasting Room" product is a comparative tasting of two such teas that come from the same trees but were processed differently--one as a "white" tea and one as an oolong.  Below you will find a brief (1-minute) interview with David Campbell, owner of Tillerman Tea in Napa, who provided BT with these teas. The full 8-minute interview comes bundled with the teas when you buy them from the Bon Teavant Tasting Room.  You will find it no where else.

Click here to listen to the 1- minute interview with David Campbell of Tillerman Tea on these rare Taiwanese wild teas:

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"A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives roses." ~ Chinese Proverb

When I come to one of my favorite local tea rooms, Teance, I am sometimes lucky enough to be greeted at the door by Yadollah Moghaddam.  He takes my hands and says "I can't tell you how happy I am to see you. Seeing you here makes me feel so good!"  His kindness is inspiring. Through his bearing, I feel valuable all of a sudden, as if my presence has meaning. He has reminded me of what is good in me with just a few kind words, a gesture, a smile, and a humble graciousness that says "You matter to me." If anything, this is the finest art of tea.

I once asked Yadollah's son, Darius, who also works at Teance, how his father had come to be so kind and gracious. "Practice," said Darius simply, as if to remind me that any of us could become like this if only we could make a small effort each day and with each person we greet.

"Everyone loves my dad," said Darius. "When I go to the bank, or to our favorite Pakistani restaurant or anywhere people know Yadolllah, people say "I love your Dad! Tell him I say hello.  Give him my best!"

Just as making tea is a practice for those who are avid tea lovers, so is kindness a practice for those who want to achieve a certain state of grace. The Dalai Lama stated, "My religion is kindness."  Though tea is not a religion, the act of serving tea with an eye towards making the guest feel welcomed, appreciated and valuable has the same essential goodness at its core and the same desire to serve with selflessness.

I had thought that some people were just born good-natured, but perhaps this is not the only way. Perhaps it can also oneday be me who glows radiantly like Yadollah, who after saying goodbye as he walked me to my car, stood at attention and watched as I drove away.  I watched him too, in my rear view mirror, saw him standing silently and diligently, as if he were my father, my brother or my best friend, saying goodbye for the last time.




"Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness"~ Seneca

  
"Wu-Wo" tea ceremony is an outdoor tea ceremony, based on the Taiwanese gong-fu style tea brewing method, but embracing all different cultural styles of brewing tea. As many as 1000 people brew tea outdoors for themselves and each other--simultaneously and in silence. If you are interested in viewing or participating in such an event, you will have a rare and outstanding opportunity to do so this weekend.

The12th International Wu-Wo Tea Convention--a bi-annual event usually held in Asia-- is coming to the United States for the first time, next weekend. Hosted by the American Tea Culture Association, the three-day event, from October 16-18, will feature two public outdoor tea ceremonies, each expected to draw upwards of 150 people from around the world, who will be bringing their favorite teas and teaware, and in traditional dress, brew tea for each other outdoors. Tea brewers will be coming from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, and other areas for this rare, bi-annual convention.
  Teas and tea brewing styles will be as different and diverse as the participants. If you miss this convention, you will likely have to wait another ten years for it to return to the United States.

"The Wu-Wo tea ceremony encourages participants to forget about knowledge, wealth, and appearance and to establish group equality without prejudice," said Betsy Meyer of the American Tea Culture Association.

Listen to this podcast interview with Betsy Meyer on the fun and fascinating wu-wo tea ceremony:
Click here to listen:

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The wu wo tea ceremony is simple easy to learn.  You simply bring a mat to sit on, a teapot pre-filled with the tea of your choice, a tea serving vessel, four cups, a thermos of hot water, and a tray. There is time to mingle before and after brewing tea, so you can admire each others'  tea ware and enjoy meeting tea lovers from around the world.

   The ceremony originated in Taiwan, where Grand Master Tsai Rong Tsang decided that he would like a more convenient way for modern people to do an outdoor tea ceremony. He discovered that by using a thermos of hot water and placing tea leaves in the pot beforehand,  you can easily take your tea set out on a hike or out to a park. From that outdoor service,  he asked 'Well, why not do it in a group?' and that's how the Wu-Wo tea ceremony and convention was born.

For larger gatherings, tea brewers choose lots to determine their seating, and then brew and serve tea to the three people on their left, while reserving one cup for themselves. Sitting in a circle, the three people to your right will be serving you their tea while you serve your tea to the three people to your left. As such, each person is both host and guest, tea server and tea sipper. At least three steepings are brewed before everyone packs up and goes about their day (or hike). The whole ceremony takes only about 30 minutes.

Many events at the convention require payment, but the Sunday Wu-Wo tea ceremony is open to the public and free of charge. You must register to be a tea brewer at the event, so follow the links in this entry. The Sunday morning (Oct. 18 @ 9 a.m.) event will be held at the Foster City Parks and Recreation Center (650 Shell Drive, Foster City, CA), about 30 minutes south of San Francisco.  Anyone interested in participating must register in advance, and will need a little practice. There will be a practice period on Friday morning, at 10 a.m. at the same location. Listen to the podcast above for information on what to bring with you, and go to www.atcasf.org to pre-register for the ceremony.

Coordinates:
Friday 10/16: 10 a.m. practice session: Pioneer Memorial Park, Mountain View. Contact Betsy Meyer at rabbitz@aol.com to sign up for training and to receive an equipment list.
Saturday 10/17: 9 a.m. Wuwo Ceremony in Memorial Park, Cupertino 
Sunday 10/18: 9 a.m. Wuwo Ceremony at Foster City Parks & Rec Center 650 Shell St., Foster City. This event is free and open to the public.
Please go to the American Tea Culture website for complete information on tea ceremony presentations, dinners, and other events taking place during the convention.

If you could walk through a time machine and visit the landscapes and history of tea, it might look like the new exhibition, Steeped in History: The Art of Tea, now on display at UCLA's Fowler Museum until November 29, 2009.

IN A FORMER ECONOMIC COLLAPSE, Franklin Roosevelt, in his famous address to a frightened and ailing nation, said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  I would concur and also add that the most important thing we have to choose is discernment itself. And quality tea is one ofour greatest allies in this endeavor.

Discernment is our most precious renewable natural resource, and this concept should be especially appealing to the artisan tea and foodie crowd who welcome the opportunity to hone their palates. Discernment is the axis upon which our love of tea depends and upon which our survival relies as well.

It is good discernment that will save us as a society. The exact same discernment we use to identify and give value to one tea over another is the same quality we use to make decisions about the direction we choose to go in from now on.  The old ways of selling and buying meaningless and irrelevant products are falling away.  What will remain, one hopes, are the products and services that require the affection of our discernment, and as such, benefit us most profoundly in the present and in the future.

Without discernment, drinking teabag tea covered in pesticides would be just as good as sipping a wild tea handcrafted in the remote ancestral tea regions of China by people whose kin have known and tended these tea plants for generations. Those of us who love artisinal tea--perhaps we can call ourselves the "Slow Tea People"--will know the difference and will do what we can to support and defend good tea (and good food).  We instinctively know that in doing so, we support discernment itself. And discernment is survival.

As such, we support tea shops and tea houses that take the risk of buying and serving slightly more expensive teas that are worth drinking. Some think five dollars for a pot of tea is too dear, but we Slow Tea People consider all that we are drinking when we drink this "expensive" tea. For one, our keen discernment tells us we are drinking not just a beverage but a phenomenon. When we pay five dollars for a good pot of tea, we are also paying for the wisdom and responsibility of the tea farmer as well as an earth-friendly cosmology which informs us of our dependence on the soil, the plants, and the many creatures who share and nourish our planet.

Each time we sip a premium tea, we know we are consuming hundreds of years of craftsmanship and skill, and in so doing, we are supporting farmers who for generations have relied upon their own good discernment to protect, nourish and preserve the land. Our discernment in this case naturally leads us to protecting the land and its thoughtful caretakers, so that it will continue to support us. These tea farmers have an intimate understanding of nature and its rhythms and secrets. Our good discernment tells us this is worth five dollars.  It is our survival.

By drinking artisinal teas, we also naturally move into an elevated state of mind, a state that offers us the benefit of a heightened sense of discernment in all of our daily choices and activities, a state that helps us make good, sound decisions with long lasting constructive effects. In this intimate and direct way, tea also supports our personal discernment, which in turn, helps us to make good decisions within our own lives and relationships.  Tea brings out generosity and goodwill, the hallmarks of successful community and business.

As well, if we are in a tearoom or tea shop that serves premium tea, we are undoubtedly sipping our tea among interesting, thoughtful people. These are good people to be surrounded by during any kind of crisis, precisely because they have good discernment. 

In quality tea rooms, we also find ourselves enfolded in an ambiance imbued with fabulous art, be it teaware, photographs, sculpture, furniture, or paintings. Slow Tea People bring these objets d'art into their lives, because they know the value of beauty and craftsmanship, beyond just the obvious. They recognize and cherish symbols that  suggest humanity has the potential to be a successful endeavor at all. It encourages us, and reminds us that our creativity harbors the possibility of continually raising the bar of our potential.

This is one of the pivotal moments of our species, which demands that we consider what products and services we consume and support. This will happen of itself, without any prodding or pushing, because people are not able to afford everything they want at every moment they want it.  We will have to make hard choices and narrowly edit our selections  The paradigm of the moment can be summed up in a couple of words, perhaps "relevance" and "value".  And it is our discernment that will help us to identify what has relevance and value.  Drinking tea naturally supports excellent decision making because it heightens the quality of our discernment.

As such, we Slow Tea People will keep good tea and visiting quality tea rooms at the top of our list and in the "must have" section of our carefully honed budgets.  It is not that we "deserve it," we rely on it and know that it is a metaphor for our best chance at thriving.

 

Illustration ©2009 Jennifer Sauer

 I JUST FINISHED READING the book The Republic of Tea: Letters to a Young Zentrepreneur, by the company's original founders, Will Rosenzweig and Mel & Patricia Ziegler.  In a series of whimsical faxes exchanged during the early 1990s between Mel (as mentor) and Will (as mentee), Mel describes not only how to build a company from the ground up, but how to craft a life: "sip by sip, not gulp by gulp."  As the book progresses, Mel invites both his colleague, Will, and his readers to consider the benefits of Tea Mind-- the state of mind one enters at around cup number five, according to Tang Dynasty poet, Lu Tong who wrote, "At the fifth cup, I am purified," in his poem, Tea Drinking.

"I want what I have," Mel petitions the reader, through his advice to Will. This statement is at the nucleus of Tea Mind, and the raison d'etre of creating a tea business, particularly in a severe economic downturn.  Wanting what you have provides relief, particularly when you need a distraction from thinking about what you may recently have lost or might lose in the unknown future. Tea is a wonderful tonic for any depression, be it economic or physiological. Tea Mind comes naturally from drinking tea and taking time out of one's day to be quiet, observant and resident in his or her own stillness. It comes of itself, as easily as the steam. Tea Mind is enduring and even more important now than it was during that puny recession of the early 1990's when The Republic of Tea book was written (and the company founded).

Tea Mind is wanting what you have rather than angling to get what you want.  This small shift in words nudges the reader towards a huge yet simple segue in thinking and values. You find that wanting what you have is much more gratifying and takes much less energy than wanting things to be different.  "I want, I want, I want," says the incumbent monkey mind. Yet when you sit down and sip a rare, hand-crafted oolong made from the ancient trees of China, you suddenly look around, and although life and its present challenges are still the same, you somehow settle into yourself, and the need for things to change somehow evaporates like streaks of steam rising then disappearing from your cup.  Suddenly, you are still and empty, and simply enjoying the gorgeousness of the steam itself, its aroma mingling with the comfort of your favorite books sitting on the shelf, and the lovely color of your living room walls.

Life has changed, and you didn't do a thing, but drink some tea and start thinking differently. "Wow," says Tea Mind. "Steam, color, smell." Tea Mind is that simple:  "I want what I have."

~Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither~

OUR COMMUNITIES LOOK TO US for sanctuary, community, compassion, and the opportunity for sharing ideas, dreams, and sorrows during these trying times.  Tea culture is the perfect vehicle for meeting the deeper needs of our friends, family, colleagues, and customers. 

David Hoffman Making Tea ©2009 Jennifer Leigh Sauer

I HAD THE HONOR and pleasure of visiting famed tea master David Lee Hoffman and his wife, Bee, for tea not long ago.  An unsuspecting visitor might be tipped off by directions to David's home and private tea house that (s)he is in for a magical adventure:

"Come up the driveway, past the boat on the lake at right and chicken coop on left.  Pass the bell tower, bear to your right, walking up the brick path that leads to the tea house, and enter through the large steel doors on left. Pass through the stone tunnel below the tea house, up the brick steps, past the worm palace and moat on the left....."

I have suddenly become Dorothy searching for the (tea) wizard in a Chinese/Nepalese version of Oz. I would not be entirely surprised to see the Tin Man or the Scarecrow waving to me at any turn of the brick path.  Whimsical stone sculptures stand erect by half-built "castles" and towers. The brick path brings the visitor over bridges and streams and past ponds and chicken coops.  I wonder when the Lollypop Kids will appear to greet me. "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," I think to myself bemusedly.

Finally making it to the open air deck of the Chinese-style tea house which faces a panoramic cathedral of old-growth redwood trees, I hear the music of male voices discussing the completion of a Japanese tile roof. "Helloooo???" I chime.  "I'm just coming down from the roof," I hear in response, as David magically flies down from above to welcome me to his kingdom. Neither hidden behind a curtain nor donning a cape, David appears before me.  He is as lovely, rustic, and authentic a character as his magnificent Chinese tea house with its gnarled-wood antique Chinese chairs and festive Nepalese prayer flags. We shake hands, and I return the quiet grin spreading beneath Hoffman's kind and curious gaze. 

David's private tea house, to which guests are welcome by invitation only, is the ultimate place to savor the delights of tea and take in the lavish gifts of the magical redwood forest (not to mention David's inspiring company). But a late autumn chill drives us into David's home, as the tea house, for now, is unheated and open to the elements.  I have brought with me a photographic print as a gift for David and Bee, yet something in me wonders if I should have brought tea. It seemed imprudent at best, and cheeky at worst, to bring tea to someone whose legendary status in the U.S. tea world is dwarfed only by his reputation among Asian tea groupies, who follow him around China to find out which teas he will buy each season. 

We enter David's warm and cozy home, which, like the tea house, faces out to the great  Northern California redwoods. "Did you bring your favorite tea," he asks?  Hawks circle the air.  I shake my head.  "Not this time," I say, feeling a bit sheepish.  I look around the wood-and-glass home to see the lovely gifts of nature David and Bee have collected, as well as some Asian art and writings.  One piece of writing tacked to a beam in the house especially moves me:

              "These three ways

              lead to the heavens:

              asserting the truth,

              not yielding to anger,

              and giving......."

                        ----Dhammapada, verse 224

David is indeed generous, bringing out three different pu-erh teas to taste, one in a bamboo casing, one a cake, and one a loose tea. He steeps the teas in ceramic gaiwans, lining them up, each behind a tasting cup, so we can taste the brews, one after the other.  He pours the rinse water into a three-legged earthen frog, which he loves because of its stability, and it's mirroring of the Chinese belief in the strength of three-pillared bases.

 

"Which tea do you think is the oldest?" he asks me later.  "How do you judge the age of a tea," I ask?  He says there are many factors, each of which can be faked.  Hmmmmm....All of the teas are smooth, and each has a very different and distinctive aroma and flavor.  One is brisk, vegetal, and almost astringent, one is mossy and changes on the tongue, and one is very earthy, the "dirt" taste many associate with pu-erhs.

One tea has a particular depth and, as I decide not to risk flaunting my ignorance, I wait for him to tell me that it is this complex tea which is the oldest.  "Probably around 1992," he says.  "This tea is much darker than the other two," he offers, pointing to a different tea, "so some might guess this to be the oldest tea. But the darkness of the tea doesn't mean its older. It's this other tea here which is the oldest", and he points to the tea in the middle, the mossy one with the personality that keeps growing and shifting with such subtlety.

The afternoon moves forward, the tall trees tossing themselves into a rose sunset.  It is time to go, to let David relax after a long day of working on the roof, which has been in the making for years and years, David says.  We promise to meet again. "Next time, I will bring tea," I add.

"Can you find your way out," David asks? I assure him I can, although within moments of departing, I find myself in a maze of tunnels, trees, streams, and collected things that have not yet found permanent homes.  I click my heels three times.......

Teance in Berekley is a great community forum in the San Francisco Bay Area for tea education.  Last week, students of tea were treated to a Korean tea ceremony performance by Korean tea master, Yoon Hee Kim. While tea was first mentioned in Korea over 5000 years ago, it gained public attention when Buddhist monks used tea in a royal funeral in the seventh century. Korean poets and intellectuals engaged in tea ceremony and gatherings for tea for hundreds of years, but then tea lost its footing through a series of unfortunate events in Korea, including war and occupation by foreign forces.  It was in the 1960s that tea made a comeback in Korea, and then again, it was through Buddhist monks, artists and intellectuals who celebrated its renaissance.

TEA ILLUMINATO, James Norwood Pratt, and his lovely Lady Valerie invited me over to share tea and Evensong this week. Evensong is an enchanting, half-hour, weekday afternoon ritual of music and prayer held at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral onNob Hill. Our mutual love of Camelia sinensis combines well with our shared interest in ritual, prayer, devotion,and music, and creates a magical afternoon that some can only dream of.

To enter Norwood and Valerie's home in North Beach is to discover a temple of tea and culture. The aura of literature and art, with its books, busts, and religious icons, wash over the visitor like fragrant notes of a fine tea.

Norwood is devoted--to tea and more deeply and personally, to his sense of the more subtle structures of the universe with its sky-blue porcelain gods, earth-green teas, and amber-brown, leather-clad beckonings of Goethe. Valerie is a lovely English woman whose gentle and intelligent bearing remind one that femininity is both strong and soft.  With ember-red hair, and a liquid awareness about her blue eyes, Valerie offers perhaps more with her attentive and quiet demeanor as most others do with their many words.

What moves me most about Norwood is not only the depth of his knowledge about tea, history, art and literature, but the depth of his spirit. His Southern manners prevent him from flaunting his sturdy intellect, so it slowly seeps into you like a soft, fine mist. I get the sense that he will meet whatever level of mental faculty is offered by his companion, but his gentle kindness and humility would not permit him to brandish overly rigorous thoughts that might elude or intimidate his guest.

Despite his bearing of refinement, Norwood is also magnificently irreverent. One of my favorite art pieces in Norwood's home is a clay cast bust (made by San Francisco sculptor Harriet Moore) of Norwood himself, sporting a large, floppy English afternoon tea hat which Norwood has apparently placed on its head. Norwood loves to poke fun at himself, and this makes him not only endearing inside his gigantic persona as the country's foremost tea expert, but more approachable as well.

Valerie offers me the best seat in the living room, a red leather, high-backed chair facing the San Francisco Bay with its toy sailboat views. We try our first tea, a 2008 spring harvest Tung Ting oolong, freshly arrived within 24 hours at Red Blossom Tea, and which I brought with me as an offering. Norwood steeps the tea in a lovely white porcelain vessel, custom designed by his friend, Jason Chen, who is the owner of Lu Yu Tea in Bellevue, Washington. The infuser looks like a tall tea cup with an elongated filter. We drink from large white porcelain tea cups, antiques seemingly worn with the ancient sipping of old Chinese tea drinkers. The tea is delicious, and Norwood approves. He is especially pleased, as he has been focusing intently on oolongs for the past six months, he says.  I breathe easier, and the level of revelry between us swirls and rises.

We then try a very special tea, Golden Lily, from Lu Yu Tea. This tea was really spectacular. Just a few kilos of this organically grown and hand-processed tea is made available, and then only to tea maker Jason Chen's closest friends. Apparently Chen owns many hectares of land in the Zhejiang and Fujian provinces of China, where he oversees the growing, harvesting, and processing of his own organic teas. The tea label includes information on the tea's origin, altitude at which it was grown, harvest season, and steeping suggestions--all the information a connoisseur would want to know about a tea (s)he is purchasing. We finish with a lovely Te Kuan Yin, an homage to the goddess Norwood reveres.

"So what makes a great tea, Norwood?", I ask.

"In my opinion, the tea plant is the highest form of vegetation. It is always a combination of heaven, earth, and man -- heaven being everything above ground, earth being the ground and everything below it, and of course, the influence of man relates to the growing, harvesting, processing and brewing of the tea plant. A great tea is made when all three of these factors combine, each at their best and in perfect harmony with each other."

Two hours of discussion and tea evanesce into wisps of fine memories, and we hasten out the door to walk up the hill to Grace Cathedral, which is both grand and graciously welcoming, like my hosts. We sit in chairs on the altar, right by the Grace Men & Boys Choir. Hearing the child voices mingle with adult voices creates a wonderful wand of energy passing over the church. Together, Norwood, Valerie and I sing and pray, voices lifted to the lovely arched ceilings and stained glass masterpieces.

As we leave, Norwood pays respects to a special corner of the cathedral that holds a statue of "Saint" John Donne. "Now this is the kind of saint I can really pray to," says Norwood. "You wouldn't want to trust praying to a saint that was always only good. Donne is the saint of writers and poets," he says with a bemused smile, and gently bows to St. John Donne.

 

 WHEN I FIRST CAME UPON TEA and tea culture in San Francisco's Chinatown, what first surprised me was the vast array of teas available. Pu-erhs. bao zhongs, senchas, maatchas, keemuns. Old growth teas, red teas, teas that wind you up and teas that quiet the mind and body. Teas that make you meditate and teas that make you chat nonstop. Wow.

LU YU, AUTHOR OF THE FIRST comprehensive book on tea culture (before there was such a concept), was intellectually rigorous, but at the same time, soulful and intuitive.  These are the qualities found in a lot of great tea people today, which is why those of us who love tea are drawn to other tea people as well. 

Lu Yu's understanding of tea was paralleled by his love of nature (the true source of any good cup of tea), from choosing the right plant, the right farming and processing methods, to, finally, using the right kind of water in which to brew the tea.  In his book, The Classic of Tea, Lu Yu distinguishes between several different sources of water to optimize the steeping of tea:

"I would suggest that tea made from mountain streams is best, river water is all right, but well water tea is quite inferior....Never take tea made from water that falls in cascades, gushes from springs, rushes in a torrent or that eddies and surges as if nature were rinsing its mouth."

Lu Yu understood the elements of nature and how they played into the final expression of a good cup of tea. He therefore responded to that understanding with cooperation and respect. What initially seems like a personal preference actually has several layers of universal awareness, expediency, and action behind it.

First, water has its own nature, depending on where it comes from and the particular characteristics of its origin.  Tea made from well water will be inferior to tea that springs from a mountain stream, says Lu Yu.  Why?  Perhaps because mountain water is WILD.  What could be more exotic, intoxicating, memorable, and love-inducing than wild tea made from wild water?  Then there is the tea plant and its leaves.  Are the tea leaves from an ancient tree or a young bush?  Was it grown high on the mountain, near lavendar or jasmine or onions?  What time of day was it harvested? Who processed it and with what tools?  How would a machine-processed tea differ from a tea that is lovingly processed with attention and care by the farmer who harvested it? 

These are the questions asked by true tea people, like Master Yu.  Inside these questions lies at least one basic premise: that all beings and objects possess their own nature, or spirit. The tea, the water, the hoe, the hand that plucks and processes the tea, the wok in which it is roasted, and the container in which it is finally packaged--all of these beings and objects influence the tea, not only because of their material composition, but because of the nature and energy they possess.  Otherwise, why would Lu Yu differentiate between river and mountain stream water, or water that gushes rather than sits quietly in a pool?  Although all water is H2O, not all water is the same in spirit or character. And I don't mean just hard or soft water, chlorinated or fluoridated water, but really the energy and nature of the water's source.

This harkens back to nature-based cosmologies in which believers recognize the inherent and particular spirit imbued in each place, object, and being.  We all know it is there, whether we openly acknowledge this eternal truth or not.  Who has not fallen in love with some very personal place--a forest, a quiet beach, a stretch of land that beckons?  Some mystery falls upon a such a place, and we appreciate it even if we can't put a name on it. 

Everything in this paradigm speaks of the intimate network of nature that is required for good tea--and the tea is very very good because it suggests a path to healthy sustainable living and survival.  Not only physical survival, but spiritual survival--the very inclination to love life itself. We are all made of the same stuff:  water, leaf, hand, sun, wok, Chinese paper with pretty designs.  We know goodness better than we know math. We smell and taste it, we see it, fringing the edges of the quietly smiling tea master, who chooses to process his tea with his bare hands rather than with a machine.  Everything in him speaks of the goodness of tea and life.