Learning from Tea
The act of brewing, serving, and drinking tea is a constant act of failure and learning. The many stages that tea leaves go through provide each many points of mastery to learn. The temperature of the water, the tea pot, the cup must all be perfect. The amount of water for the amount of tea leaves must be perfect. The time for each brew must be perfect. When you serve tea, the cup should face the correct direction and it should be the correct distance away from the drinker. For each tea these variable are all different. For each season these variables are different. It is this unachievable perfection that gives rise to an appreciation for tea.
Through the process of serving tea, you must be aware of all elements that go into the tea. At first your awareness is small and can only keep track of water temperature, and time. Then you consider the aeration of the tea, the aesthetics of the procedure, and the humidity in the room. You then consider the side of the hill that the tea tree faced, the minerals in the clay that the tea is baked in, the farmers who pick the tea. By practicing, you eventually become more aware of everything that goes into tea. When you experience this sense of increasing awareness you begin to lose a sense of self as you focus not on what happened that day or what you might be worried about, but on very external things. Tea serves provides a perception onto things much greater than yourself. You gain a heightened sense of thoughtfulness and empathy as you are unencumbered by your beliefs. In The Book of Tea, it describes this Philosophy of Tea:
The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism in the ordinary acceptance of the term, for it expresses conjointly with ethics and religion our whole point of view about man and nature. It is hygiene, for it enforces cleanliness; it is economics, for it shows comfort in simplicity rather than in the complex and costly; it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it defines our sense of proportion to the universe. It represents the true spirit of Eastern democracy by making all its votaries aristocrats in taste.
In essence, each serving is a meditation on the cup of tea. In the drinking of tea, one should focus all of their attention onto the drink. In each cup of tea, with all its imperfections, lies a unique aroma, color, opacity, texture, flavor, and finish. In the appreciation of tea, one can realize the many imperfections that come together to make something beautiful. In this way, drinking tea is an exercise in appreciating the beauty of the world.
