Since I began writing this blog, I feel like my tea drinking has entered a new phase. I’ve tried all the types of tea, I’ve tried so much water, I have all sorts of teaware, and I’ve enjoyed thousands of gongfu tea sessions. While in some ways I am not very experienced – I have never been to China, Japan, Taiwan etc., I feel like I am a pretty experienced tea drinker nowadays.
After drinking tea for a while, it can be easy to settle into routines, to literally “go through the motions” of gongfu tea practice. Grab a teapot, grab a tea, weigh it, load the teapot, do the session, dump it out, clean up, repeat. After a few hundred iterations of this, it can become a little routine – less and less exciting over time. I love tea so the practice never loses its charm, but sometimes it feels like I could have gotten / used to get much more out of my hour long sit. Luckily, there are all sorts of things we can do to prevent this deterioration and keep things fresh.
1) Getting new things
Change one thing about your tea practice, and you change everything. A new unglazed clay teapot makes every tea taste different and feel different to pour. A new chabu (tea mat) stimulates your mind and its associations to what you’re doing and feeling in a different way. Even a new waste bowl / jianshui sets the tone uniquely. A new teatable gives you and your guests a memorable setting for everything! So, you can always mindfully choose a cup or pitcher or anything that might make your sessions feel new and exciting.
2) Presence
Zen aphorism: if you drink tea, just drink your tea. Where I work, the tea room doesn’t allow technology at the tea table. When I’m home, anything is allowed, but sometimes I have to set the intention before the session to make this about presence, not about consumption or entertainment. For my sessions at home, the music playlist, cassette tape or vinyl record goes on, and the phone goes face down on the table, the modern gesture of defiance of being controlled by tech.
Then, it’s a matter of being present to my actions and sensations. The experience magnifies – what was once just abstractly/conceptually “drinking tea” becomes a living reality. There is so much going on at the tea table, it makes any possible distraction seem boring by comparison. There’s truly a universe inside each teapot, I mean, not to wax poetic, but you can’t get to the bottom of it. There’s really a lot going on and it’s constantly shifting and revealing new aspects. You miss all of that when you don’t pay attention, and the longer you pay attention, the deeper you go. The deeper you go, the better you feel, and the more likely you are to discover something you’ve never noticed before. Right?
3) Technique
I have to admit, even though I’ve made tea for a long time, because of the person I am, I can be a bit messy and inconsistent. When people do gongfu with a very defined sequence of movements, it looks flawless. I don’t really have that – I go by intuition, so things move around, aren’t set in stone, improvised, done in different orders. Perhaps that’s indicative of a sort of neuroticism. So, I’d like to arrive at a smooth and professional style of serving gongfu that still contains my personal essence. This is a very fruitful development in tea practice: discovering your way of serving and then codifying it into something you can follow consistently. Doing this, you can stop thinking about what you’re doing entirely, and then just move with the tea effortlessly. This probably looks really good and feels very satisfying. So try even writing down a sequence of events, like if/when you pour water over the teapot etc., and try it out/tweak over time until it solidifies.
4) Water (gypsum)
Water is crazy – want to revitalize your tea practice? Move to a new city/country. Everything changes. Water is the communicator of tea. Water expresses tea. The different mineral content and other aspects of the water will change how it tastes and how the mouthfeel is, for every tea you have. It also changes the energy and feeling of the tea. If you don’t want to move, try this little tip. 5-10mg of gypsum in your kettle will intensify and brighten your session, maybe revealing new flavors. Try it! Also, getting a good filter like an everpure will reveal more subtle flavors that were being masked before. Fresh!
5) Friends
Don’t be shy – have friends over for tea or bring your tea to a house party and set up a little tea corner. There’s something about opening up your personal tea practice to others that is very gratifying and helps you look at your own ways of enjoying tea with fresh eyes. When you have sessions with friends, let them make you a pot or two also. Comparing your tea practice to others allows you to learn so much about different perspectives and relationships to tea. Everyone makes tea so uniquely! You might say, wow this tea would never have come out this way had you not come over and brewed it for me. I appreciate this tea even more now. Thank you! Let’s grab some lunch, I’m starving!
Goals:
This is sort of a sixth idea, but also is an overall concept: it’s good to have goals for your tea practice to give it some forward momentum. They can be related to the five ideas above, but also to anything you can think of. For me, my personal examples are:
- I want to be more present during my tea sessions
- I want to improve my technique to make it more consistent and fluid
- I want to test out my presence and technique in front of people and get joy from that
Some other hypothetical #teagoals would be:
- make your water more satisfying / find a good brand of bottled water for special occasion tea sessions
- find a new piece of teaware that resonates with you
- learn how to experience cha qi more intimately
- understand the general differences between puer tea regions and how they age
- learn which teas will taste good to make for different people
So think about your tea goals! What do you want to accomplish to enjoy tea even more – how can you challenge yourself and strengthen your tea practice? How could your experience be even better, and how do you want to feel when you make tea? With these things in mind, you will have a better time with your tea.
Tea Secrets 