The 7 habits of highly effective tea people #3

The third habit of the '7 habits of highly effective people' book is "Put first things first". This habit is about prioritizing your most important tasks and managing your time effectively. It also involves saying no to things that are not aligned with your goals and values.

This is great advice for tea lovers. It supposes to prioritize your efforts on what will yield the most improvements to your brew. Paradoxically, this will mean that you have to alternate priorities, because after a while it takes longer to make significant progress in areas where you have become proficient, while you could make lots of progress in fields that you have not studied or practiced much, yet.

Let's look in detail what first thing first means in different tea areas:

1. Select the most suitable water, because water is the No.1 ingredient of tea.

2. Select high quality tea leaves you like, because this is the No. 2 ingredient for a good brew.

3. Select (invest) in high quality tea ware:

- a great kettle, because it has a direct impact on the quality of the water. (Tetsubin or silver kettles are top).

- a porcelain gaiwan is the most neutral and cost effective tea vessel (for beginners),

- an Yixing teapot is the ultimate teapot for Oolongs and puerhs and can help improve the brew if the teapot is well paired with the tea.

- thin celadon cups are a good match for fresh teas, and ivory color cups are a good match for teas with darker brew colors.

- a porcelain tea jar is a great tool to age or wake up a tea before brewing,

- beautiful utensils will also add pleasure to your tea sessions.

4. Spend time learning the theory of tea brewing,

5. Spend time practicing tea brewing.

6. Learn about tea history, tea production, tea customs... in order to gain new ideas, more appreciation and a better understanding of tea.

7. Repeat the process and try to improve on each point.

Another way to apply this principle is saying no to things that would lessen your tea experience:

1. Don't brew tea with water that is too hard or has a strong chlorine scent,

2. Don't brew tea bags or stale leaves that were not properly stored. (Life is too short to drink bad tea!)

3. Don't brew good tea unless you have matching tea ware.

4. Don't brew a tea before understanding its character and what to expect.

5. Don't practice with your best teas, but also don't practice with bad teas. 

6. Don't start or spend time on another hobby before you have learned a good deal about tea.