Suspension and disbelief

I first learned tea in Taiwan, from one of the chief proponents of the smelling cup (along with tasting cup) for drinking Pu-Erh tea. The tea tasting cup set was developed for drinking High Mountain Oolong tea primarily. It was a way of booth aerating the tea, cooling it slightly for drinking and providing a narrow point of focus for evaluating tea fragrance and such.

Among professionals, it is believed that we should be able to identify the tea mountain simply by smelling the tea. Some more practiced tea buyers will be able to identify individual farms or even specific roasters based on the simple waves of the beaker in front of their nose. This may not account for what is known as great skill (Kung fu) in tea culture, but it is a good start.

In keeping with the views of my teacher, Pu-Erh, and especially aged Pu-Erh tea, is extremely fragrant. We must concentrate and in a sense slow down in order to be able to perceive the intricacies of their aroma. The ability to perceive these micro details in turn set up a certain architecture in the mind, which then allows us to evaluate the origin, quality, age, and purity of a tea without any additional information being provided.

The secret — I find — in being able to fully perceive the quality of a tea through scent, is to take enough time with smelling. Different teas reveal themselves at different temperatures and so we catch the rhythm of the aroma at different points. The moment of recognition often happens slightly after the point where most people give up or switch to sipping. It is, all the same, one of the surest ways of tuning the mind into the vibration of a given tea — the Cha Yun (茶韻).

If you don’t have smelling cups or prefer one of the tea styles which spurns them, then the lid of the gai wan, the empty tea pitcher or the tea pot itself will provide a clear read of the tea. Exploring this technique will greatly expand (more than double) our ability to know a given tea. The degree to which we expand our subtle awareness in the tea brewing process, the finer and more nuanced our tea will be.

Creating the Infinite

A well brewed pot of tea creates an empty space for the Universe to rest a while. It is the eye of a storm, offering complete stillness, complete calm — if only for a moment.

In advanced tea brewing every single factor is significant. This extends to every movement, every sound, each thought form. When awareness is raised past a certain point, we as tea makers are operating under a microscope. Here is the platform where upon the all illusive place of perfection becomes a possibility. It is even possible, for some, to transcend perfection — or at least conventional attitudes toward what is possible.

To try and control the manifold variables consciously would be too much for anyone, and so the expert comes to rely on the automatic functions of mind and body. Much as we trust the heart to regulate its beating, the blood to circulate, the organs to do their various jobs — so it goes with the actions of a tea service. Having to consciously regulate all these functions individually would prove overwhelming, the results often times disastrous.

Willingness to surrender control over the process, of the moment, is alien to some people. It is, all the same, the only way to go beyond the autonomic, wooden marionette way of tea brewing. It is the path by which one comes to achieve the states of being described as: tea and tea maker as one, heaven and earth united, tea and Zen are one flavour…

In the end, as with all things related to the philosophy of gong fu, either you can do it or you can’t. The result will, absent of all explanation, speak for itself.

Meditation is a Contact Sport

In the past I was very often resistant to the topic of meditation, and to the word itself. Like most words, it is a bit inefficient and clumsy in trying to bring across the value of the Form. Also, at the time, many of the people who spoke the most about meditation were those that I least aspired to be like.

In reality we are all meditating to some degree throughout our day, and that all of these acts of meditation — whether they be in a temple or at the end of a meal — produce their own predictable results. Where awareness goes energy flows and all of that.

Some might call my preferred mode of tea service a meditation, or tea practice. I’m, not sure if fiddling with a kettle and then staring at my tea pot or at a point in the wall requires any particular nomenclature. The true values for me, is what I get out of this process. The resetting of the mind, or at the least a distinct slowing down of the bodily processes in order that afterward they work much more efficiently.

Ultimately, I came to get over some of my hang ups with the word meditation, by coming at it from another direction. The path of Qi Gung (kung fu), merged with the practice of tea ritual, were the alternate gate which led to the palace of realization.

What appealed to me most about the Way of Tea was that there were no rules to it per say. My teacher once used a play on words to define this Cha Dao (Way of Tea), as simply the pouring out of a pot of tea (dao cha 倒茶). This was clever on his part, but belies a hidden truth in the experience of the Way of Tea. That being, by letting go we may gain a grasp of everything.