As tea makes more of an appearance in the west, and more westerners become introduced to tea, one of the things that I see more and more is this sort of tea spiritualism. Gongfu cha is sold as a 'traditional Chinese tea ceremony.' It is said that gongfu cha means 'the way of tea' (it doesn't; that would be "cha dao"). It's even said that this is the 'traditional' way of enjoying tea; it's not. There are a lot of things wrong with this.

First I want to make it clear that I have no problem with people that incorporate tea into their meditation or other practices. It is not spirituality that I have a problem with, nor do I think that the two are separate and should stay separate. I don't even have a problem with the notion of learning things with broader implications in life from tea. What I take issue with is claiming that tea (and the practice of brewing) is inherently spiritual, that it is somehow traditional, and the people that make money from propagating these things. Most importantly, I have a problem with Chinese culture being presented as romanticized exoticism. 

It might also surprise some to know that I actually think that there is a tremendous amount to learn from tea -- much of which is the same as you would learn from the 'spiritualizing' of tea. Keep this in mind as you read, and I will touch on this after I outline the problems I see with it.

In no particular order, these are the reasons that I have a problem with this:

7) Gongfu cha is not ceremonial.
Gongfu means "to do with skill." So "gongfu cha" literally means "tea made with [care and] skill." The term also implies expertise gained from long study and practice, so you could also say that it means "tea made with expertly care."

Tea culture in China is pervasive throughout the (large) population and throughout history. That means that tea is, and has been, many different things; so much so that you shouldn't believe it when someone says that tea is inherently any-one-thing; it's a humble practice for people across socio-economic boundaries, and it's a practice for the wealthy elite; it's non-materialistic, and it's a status symbol for the wealthy; it's a social practice that brings people together, and it's introspective and quiet to enhance solitude. It's common for some, and it's special for others.

With that said, one of the more common uses has been for people to come together, during a break from hard work and the hard life, to drink and regain their energy. By turning it into a kind of spiritual ceremony/practice, it places it on a pedestal and out of reach from anyone that's not in-the-know. It creates an 'us vs. them,' which I consider to be the antithetical to being a tea enthusiast, which is hinged on the accessibility of tea.

More importantly, it sets up the person making the claims as a "tea master," and makes it necessary for you to rely on them. Which brings me to my next point:

5) People making these claims are trying to sell you something
Almost without fail, the people that spread this notion are doing so to make money, and they don't see another way to do it. By turning it into a spiritual practice, they can distract you from the poor quality of the tea (which would be obvious to someone with more practical knowledge and experience), and they can use meditative tricks to simulate a feeling of "cha qi" that the tea doesn't actually have (if it did, you wouldn't need to meditate, or even pay any attention, to get the effects; you wouldn't even have to be "open" to the effects, just like you don't need to be "sensitive" to wine to get drunk). It also allows them to charge more for the tea than it's worth; it's quite common for these types to sell mediocre tea at top-shelf prices. Of course, if you believe these things then you probably also reckon that you can't find this kind of tea from regular tea vendors, so you're less likely to look.

One of the biggest objections I have is that thinking about tea in these terms creates boundaries to your learning. So instead of being able to figure things out for yourself, based on what you know from prior experience, you have to go to that person to get the answer. 

4) It's not traditional
Something that you should keep in mind, as you progress through your journey with tea, is that the tea industry is constantly innovating and evolving. Tea that is familiar to you now may have looked quite different just a decade or two in the past (and probably did). As such, tea practice has also changed.

What you see now with gongfu cha, with the aroma cups, pitcher, and so on, actually only dates back to the 1970s in Taiwan. Before that they did use small teapots and cups, with one cup being one ounce, but even that is relatively new in the long history of tea.

The original, traditional way of brewing tea is to tear a chunk off of a brick or cake, grind it into dust, and boil it for a long time with spices, and maybe even things like rancid fat. Of course this is unthinkable now, but tea was produced quite differently back then and it was made to be prepared 

When you talk to tea enthusiasts that live in the parts of Asia where it is common (south/east China, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc.), they don't even recognize the term "gongfu cha" as referring to this kind of brewing (although it may be referred to as "old man tea," as it's often retirees that have the time and patience to get into it). Over there it is simply understood that when you have a good quality wulong or puerh, then you brew it this way in order to get what it has to offer. This is the same way that when you buy a good/special/expensive wine, you don't drink it from a juice glass while watching TV (as you might with a cheap one); rather, you use the appropriate wine glass and drink it in a conducive setting.

2) It's a form of "Orientalizing"

This shouldn't need much explaining. Suffice it to say that tea is the same thing to the Chinese as it is to everyone else, and no different from high tea in England. Anything beyond the preparation of tea is entirely personal. It would be like insisting that wine tasting is necessarily Catholic, and is perhaps somehow a form of Catholicism.

It can be very easy to slip into Orientalism with tea, and it's something that every enthusiast should keep in mind and try to avoid. The fact that some people from China or Taiwan might present it this way does not change the fact. The moment that you think of tea drinking as something exotic, and something inherently different and separate from the west, you are in danger of promoting orientalism.

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1) Meditation is hard

It can take years to get good at it. It takes a lot of patience and practice, and you have to know what you're doing. It's very easy for people to think that they're meditating with clear mind, when they're actually lost in thought without realizing it. I'm an advocate of meditation, and even of making tea a part of your practice once you're good at it, but tea is not a shortcut and it's foolish to treat it as such. 

Tea is also far too conducive to the traits that a serious practitioner needs to work on eliminating; getting good with tea means seeking and drinking as many different teas as possible (which can be dangerous spending), whereas getting good at meditation means minimizing -- looking inward for these experiences, and not depending on material things for them. If you want to couple tea and meditation, you need to first separate them and put meditation first. After that you can incorporate action, but that means placing no form of action above others  -- tea is no more important than sweeping the floor.

My experience with tea has given me a platform to learn to exercise my patience; to slow down; to examine passively; to focus my mind and my senses; to cope with the unknown; to balance logic, emotion, and intuition; to balance the creative and the technical -- and much more. Tea is wonderful for this, but it's also not singular in this. Any pursuit that you give yourself over to completely can turn into a lens for the way in which you see the world, and help you achieve a state of "flow." This is actually well known among artists, and it's important to remember that it comes from within. Tea, and especially tea drunkenness, has a way of offering positive feedback into this, but viewing gongfu cha as inherently spiritual will draw dividing lines between people and put some people above others in a variety of ways. Enjoy your tea how you like, but remember that there are as many different perspectives as there are people that drink, and don't try to quantify the lives and beliefs of a culture as so different from your own; most of the trappings are only skin deep.

On drinking puerh

Good tea is not really known about in Portland (although we're starting to get there, as more tea houses/shops open), so I don't get to meet a lot of tea people in person. However, whether I meet them in person or start talking to them online, one of the things that seems to happen a lot is that they can't understand why I'm not intensely enthusiastic about puerh tea. No matter how often I say it, the subject always comes back around, with the person being shocked that I don't "like tea," and/or I'm served/given a young sheng as though I just need to try it.

The reason is really quite simple: we don't get good puerh in the west, as MarshalN points out, I don't find drinking young puerh to be pleasurable, and old stuff (good or not) is expensive and hard to find.

Just to be clear, though: I do like good, well aged puerh. Unfortunately, out of the many that I've had, I think that only one or two had the vibrant spring freshness with good complexity and a comfortable mouth feel. Much of the young stuff is beyond uncomfortable, to the point of inducing acid reflux.

Conversely, wulong offers a lot more richness and complexity than the puerh we usually get here, and is easier to find. While we don't get access to some of the exceptionally good stuff, and the good stuff can be expensive, we can find some great stuff in English language online stores for relatively reasonable prices.

If your puerh isn't as good as a high-end wulong, then it's not a good tea. The characteristics to look for are similar in most ways, but I've never experienced it in puerh available on western markets; only in samples sent from generous benefactors that live there.

One of the characteristics of a good wulong is a comfortable mouth-feel. I'm not speaking of just the texture or thickness of the tea, but rather how it feels in the mouth; while some teas -- even ones that have a great taste and aroma -- make you want to move the tea around your mouth, and you have to make a conscious effort to swallow, others are quite soft and comfortable; they seem to just evaporate in your mouth, and you could happily keep it on your tongue all day.

When puerh is made, the tea master is making something that should be good in 20-30+ years. They usually want it to be very strong, bitter, and astringent when it's first made so that it will mellow down to something that will be interesting after decades of aging.

So as a person that looks for comfortable mouth feel, I absolutely do not look to young puerh. I will drink the stuff as a matter of evaluating it, but it's not meant to be a great tea while it's young; if it is, it's probably not a good puerh.

The one exception to all of this is shu puerh. Serenity Art had a good selection of aged shu puerh, and I think that aged shu is heavily underrated, but this still doesn't usually have a great deal of complexity. I drink it often, but it's generally as something akin to eating comfort food. Of course now that Serenity Art is closed, my aged shu has become a little more precious. Hopefully they will find the means to re-open the store in the future. (In addition to liking the store, I think the couple that owned it are great people, with great passion for tea, that deserve success) Shu won't compare to aged sheng at any age, but given 10-20 years of wet storage it can be worth drinking. It can also be good for helping the enthusiast get keyed into mouthfeel and hou yun, which is possibly the most important thing in tea.

So if you meet me at some point, please don't expect me to be impressed with your puerh, unless you're a serious collector with well-aged stuff. I'm sorry if that sounds snobbish, but I simply don't enjoy young or adolescent puerh.

First post on my new blog

If you've been around the online tea community for a while, then you may remember that I had another tea blog back in 2007. Back then I was pretty new to tea, and my posts consisted of tasting notes for different teas. At some point I realized that my understanding of tea in general was changing, and that posts describing the characteristics of different teas wasn't really all that useful. I wanted to contribute something more substantial, and wanted to wait until I had learned enough to do so.

So here I am, 6 years later. I don't know how useful my musings will really be, but I think they will be more worthwhile to think about than what various teas smell and taste like. Hopefully this will help someone along their tea journey, or at least give them something to think about, but at least this blog will give me an outlet for some of these thoughts.

Will I blog for more than 6 months this time? I guess that only time will tell; I make no promises :)