Tea is the most beautiful and most satisfying pastime I can think of! Invented in China, it's a pinnacle of the civilized world and has been adopted by most cultures around the world. These small leaves brewed in boiling water bring so much meaning and joy to mankind! Let me try to list all the benefits of tea. We take them so much for granted and forget to be thankful for this amazing culture.
1. Tea production is in a constant search for quality, excellence, affordability, sustainability... New cultivars continue to be invented. Better machines help the producers counter the labor shortages. The trend is less chemicals and less harmful chemicals... Tea is constantly evolving. The high mountain Oolong is a good example, since it only appeared in the 1990s, 30 years ago only! Tea producers continue to experiment and create new teas, just like Apple churns a new model of its iPhone on a regular basis! The result is that the tea industry provides teas for all the tastes, at all quality and price levels. It would be more difficult to choose a tea wisely than find your keys in a maze. Luckily, there are tea experts whose sole job is to help and guide tea lovers!
2. And yet, tea culture is also a world of traditions that are preserved, cherished, passed from one generation to the other. Some teas have become standards (Xihu BiLuoChun, WuYi Yan Cha, Dong Ding Oolong, Darjeeling red teas...) The Japanese Chanoyu, Chaoshan Gongfu Cha, British tea time... show the traditional and eternal side of tea.
3. For us, tea drinkers, this means we can learn from a long tea history dating back to Lu Yu (who wrote the first tea book), learn from the tradition and add our own creative contribution! The sky is the limit! We have over 1000 years of tea culture and 2000 years of Chinese porcelain history to inspire us! My Chaxi try to combine both the new and the past. An antique Japanese tetsubin, new porcelain singing cups, Qing dynasty small plates, a vase by ceramist Jacob Bodilly, exclusive Chabu, a modern zhuni Yixing teapot, a qinghua porcelain jar from Jingdezhen and crystal butterflies!
4. Tea is much more than just a beverage that smells and tastes good.
The fact that you have to prepare it yourself is the ultimate teacher about life. It teaches about cause and consequence:
- do it right and it will taste good,
- do it bad and it will taste bad.
- one bad thing can ruin it all (the weakest link)
- to know the theory is good, but to practice is better.
Tea has refined aromas that are natural, not artificially scented. If you are used to drinking (high quality) tea, you develop a palate for natural food. You are less likely to be attracted by industrial fast food, because it tastes fake, unnatural. While we all love the sweet taste, tea helps us to learn about how intense natural sweetness should be.
6. Tea is social, even when we drink it alone!
Tea is a companion for your soul. You can select your tea to fit your mood, the weather, the occasion, the time of the day... Its presence will be felt deep inside. It will make you smile, feel warm, relaxed or energized. It will reconnect you with the present moment and help your spirit travel thanks to scents that tap directly into your brain's memory.
7. Tea is not just beauty, but it at its finest, tea is also harmony and flow. There should be harmony between the elements you have selected for your Chaxi,.and flow in the way that you prepare the tea, step by step, as I tried to show in my silent tea class last week.
Today's Alishan Oolong is, indeed, packed with positive energy and thoughts. I recommend to use a generous amount!
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