Chapter Four
TEA RITUALS
Monkey Tea
Yunnan golden monkey tea has a sweet bouquet and is the color of amber. It draws you in because the name is so appealing. No one is sure if that wonderful name came from the monkeys that may have picked leaves that grew high on uncultivated plants or because the leaves look hairy, much like the monkeys that live in the Yunnan region of China, where the first known tea trees grew. When you drink this tea, you can imagine tasting a connection back to some of the first known cultivated plants. It is the perfect tea to sip as you contemplate ritual and the old gift found anew in tea.
The best way to prepare this tea is to first purchase the leaves from producers that you have researched and believe are concerned about the workers as well as the quality of the plant. The best water temperature for this black tea is about 200 degrees, and you should let about 1 teaspoon steep for 3 minutes in a small pot of water. The color of this tea is so beautiful that serving it in a white china teacup enhances the experience.
SOMETIMES WHEN I DRINK tea, it’s as if I’m smelling sacred incense or feeling a well-worn quilt. As I take the first sip of a steamy cup, it’s like calling on the old saints to come and share their wisdom. Whenever I read about tea, I’m reminded that I’m studying a sacred history that carries one of the oldest cultivated plants known as both a symbol and a practical tool. When we smell tea, we are sharing in the experience of monks in Japan more than thirteen hundred years ago. The story of tea is so revered that there are myths that the Buddha himself made the first cup and shared it with his followers. Because tea is laden with ritual, tea and religion have always been intertwined. This is significant because tea, in addition to being a drink, is also a symbol of the universal thirst for spirit and truth. As the second most popular liquid consumed worldwide next to water, tea has a rare podium from which to preach about global connectedness and peace in this world.
The world of tea was held in such high esteem that it was a protected secret for more than two thousand years. Until the nineteenth century, it was still believed in England that green and black tea leaves came from two different plants, instead of being the result of different manufacturing processes. It was a mysterious elixir that people longed for, and learning how to drink it properly and with ritual was compelling.
The nature and effects of tea lend themselves to use in religious practices and rituals. Cultivation, preparation, and serving tea provide physical and spiritual benefits. This quieting and clarifying drink offers a natural way to focus your mind, body, and spirit. All of the accouterments, such as tending tea gardens or setting the tea service, offer us a path for learning discipline, cultivation, patience, and faithfulness.
Over the centuries, tea became a currency in the East as it moved into Japan, Mongolia, and Tibet. One could trade tea for horses and pay tribute to dynasty leaders in bricks of tea. Monks and gardeners dedicated large parts of their daily practice to the tending the tea plants and to refining the planting, growing, and processing of the leaves. In the eighth century AD, China began the tradition of formal tea gatherings and developed the role of the tea master. Through years of study and practice, this master embodied the way of tea culture and etiquette and can guide students and pilgrims. This is the time when Lu Yu, considered one of the fathers of tea, wrote the masterpiece The Classic of Tea, also known as Ch’a Ching. This magnum opus remains one of the most quoted texts in the world of tea literature. In it Lu Yu explores the tools and utensils of tea, including the precise details of boiling.
At times the story of Lu Yu’s life reads more like fiction than fact. Tea lore suggests he was adopted by a Buddhist monk and later ran off to the circus as a clown. He found favor with a local governor who offered him access to his library and a teacher. Lu Yu eventually learned the arts of calligraphy, poetry, and tea. He dedicated his life to the perfection of growing, manufacturing, and serving tea. The Classic of Tea establishes an unbroken line from the first tea leaves to the cup we sip from in the present. It solidifies the connection between drinking tea and the religious experience as it ties the leaves to the fathers of tea, the growers and pickers of the leaves, and the experience of drinking tea in a deep, awe-filled ritual.
The relationship between tea and religion remains strong throughout the world today. Tea ceremonies range from Eastern practices, to a maté experience in South America where yerba maté is served from seasoned gourds, to a high tea with rare stoneware in a more Western ritual, to a South African bush tea around a ceremonial fire. Websites, newsletters, hundreds of Twitter accounts, and books by tea communities around the world want to help usher in a revival of tea reverence around the world. Some people go so far as to drink only teas that come directly from living plants without drying the leaves because they offer true healing to our bodies. A global community of tea drinkers is discovering that the way of tea is opening a path to justice. There is a growing economic market for tea grounded in the deep respect for the ritual of appreciating and sharing the beverage.
To understand the connection between tea and religious rituals, I needed to attend more formal tea ceremonies. I know from my twenty-five years as a priest the value of setting a table and offering a ritualized meal. A kinship exists between setting an altar with fine linen and setting a tea table with a cloth. Chalices and patens, teacups and saucers seem copacetic. I could learn about the story of tea like I learned the art of presiding at religious services and rites. I could learn from experts, I could experiment and imitate my mother’s habits, improvising when I needed to.
One of the first rituals I attended was a Japanese tea ceremony in the botanical gardens of Seattle. This event is highly regarded among tea aficionados. As I walked the path toward the ceremony, it felt clear that the way of tea is meant to lead us with intention toward peace. The circuitous route leading to the small building where the ceremony was held was lined with carefully placed rocks, small ponds, and ornamental statues. The location of every plant was calculated. Every detail had a meaning. I walked with my senses wide awake and wide aware as I took in the details of the light and the space. I knew I needed more language, more history, more context to understand all the layers of meaning, but even with my limited knowledge, I could sense the beauty and meaning in the deepest parts of my being.
Among the first acts in a tea ceremony is the presentation of matcha, the powered green tea whipped into a bitter liquid. We admired the artistry and beauty as each bowl and utensil was set out for viewing. Time was spent cleansing pots, pans, and whisks, followed by a ritualized cleansing of the person serving the tea. Each participant practiced gratitude and awareness throughout the ceremony as they knelt and watched.
As the lead tea server knelt before the elements of tea and purified herself, I was reminded of a fellow priest preparing the Eucharist at an altar. The similarities between these purification rituals are striking. Both are done in public view with the intention of cleansing the servers before they touch the sacred elements. By pouring water over their hands and being careful not to touch anything unclean before they serve, they are showing honor through humility. Both acts remind those involved that presiders at the rites are to serve with right intentions.
After the servers were cleansed, they bowed as they placed the tea in front of us, the receivers of tea. We returned the gesture and bowed from our kneeling position in gratitude. Images of churchgoers bounced in my mind, as they genuflect before the altar and kneel in pews after receiving communion. Both the tea ceremony and the Eucharistic meal are social events that stress aesthetics and require appreciation of long-standing traditions. Bowing as I took my first sip reminded me of the beauty I take for granted in my own religious tradition. Both rituals ask participants to believe that in the practice we become what we hope to be—more at peace and closer to God.
The act of preparing and pouring tea can take long enough to make the tea service the entire focus of the gathering. It slows time and stretches out moments to be fully experienced. Watching the presiders at this meal made me want to be more intentional about how I serve communion. Slowing the serving of the bread and wine would be a gift. Partakers might find moments stretched and feel the stone places in their hearts melting.
But ritual cuts both ways in hearts. Just as the grace and wonder of ritual were allowing me to be more mindful, I glanced at the women servers walking in small steps with cinched robes and remembered that with every ritual meal, there are traps. I am torn by the truth that even this beautiful and almost silent ritual carries the note of oppression on the tails of the obis the women don. Whenever we participate in religious ceremonies, we know that a history including oppressive behaviors toward women is not that far behind. The servers of tea wear the traditional kimonos of the geisha, who served tea as part of their rituals. In addition to being entertainers and servers, the geisha have a history of exploitation and abuse. My mental struggle lingered as I knelt for another forty-five minutes. The thoughts of beauty and oppression hung in the silent air as I admired the bowls, watched the generosity, and tasted the sweet homemade rice cake.
At the end of the ceremony, the guests were invited to slurp the last sip of tea that became froth at the bottom of the cup. I want to slurp the last drop as part of the tradition of the chado. I want to participate in this beautiful dance of tea without judgment. But it is hard not to let the historical oppression of women seep into the steeping frothy tea. Beauty and ritual are forever tied into the images of women that keep them from the fullest expressions of being human. At least that is how it feels sometimes. Keep women veiled and cinched and silent, and then they will be honored. In witnessing the scene before me, I know that the women who will work in the café will have borne the brutality of the world. I am too keenly aware that faith and ritual can truly be the ties that bind us to violence and complacency.
But I am just a student of tea. I was only in a position on my knees to reflect and could not let my projections blind me to the beauty unfolding before me. There will be a time to raise our teacups and shout that we are ready for a new revolution. We will proclaim we are ready to change this world that still buys and sells women, we are ready to change the way we consume so that small farmers receive living wages and the land thrives, and we are ready to pour our resources and time into healing structures like the café and break down the prison walls. But that time hasn’t come. So I slurp my last sip of tea with the host and keep walking the way of tea.
After the tea ceremony finished, I felt the pull of tradition, one that begs you to live more acutely and intentionally. While tea never talks back, I can almost hear the distant past calling me to learn more. In recent years, I’ve discovered that the rituals around the tea, whether in a traditional ceremony or in a more personal practice, are good habits to develop for all spiritual travels.
Another ritual that I’ve tried to embrace through the tea ceremony is the practice of waiting. Nothing about the ceremony is ever rushed. Everything moves in a holy hush of slow motion. Every action is deliberate, every cell of energy well spent. One of the ways to embrace the slowing in tea culture comes from a tea called herbal florals. This Chinese luxury tea is made from tying, with a small white string, teas, herbs, and dried flower into a large dry blossom sculpted into a ball. As you drop the tightly wound ball of tea into hot water you can sit and watch the tea slowly come to life in the water. Dried petals unfurl leaf by leaf like a resurrection fern on a summer day. The watery play of the dancing flower turns the water to sepia as a magical blossom appears from the middle of the flower that once hid its treasure. It grows and dances with stray petals and saturated leaves. When it has taken its final bow, I’m invited to drink it in. Somehow I never feel like I’m waiting during the steeping, even though time has passed. Instead it is a joyful dance of unfolding mystery. Whenever I use an herbal floral, some of that joy sinks into my heart. The ritual of waiting produces the fruits of unexpected peace that I am invited to drink in along with the joy of expectation.
Learning to pay attention to the small details is another free and unending gift the rituals of tea ceremony can teach. Not too long ago I sat at a gate at the airport and put a floral tea ball into steamy hot water and sat down. I opened my e-mail as I watched the tea turn an ordinary cup of water into a black, deep brew. One of the employees at Thistle Farms had written an e-mail about our sage field that we had recently planted and tended and why they had decided not to harvest the sage leaves the day before, as scheduled. She wrote that the plants looked withered and she wanted me to see the field before they did anything. This was sad news. Not only had Thistle Farms made a significant investment in time and plants, but the sage had been expected to double in size. Instead, it was dying, and my hopes of harvesting the leaves and turning them into essential oils were shriveling. I could picture the sage rolling into small dried, lifeless balls that looked like the tea I was drinking.
In the face of disappointment, the rituals I learned from the way of tea offered peace and clarity. They gave me the path to simply take in the news and sip my tea. Breathe. And lean in to the grieving. My heart sank as I imagined the lost, blackened crop. I hate it when things you count on start to fall apart. After another sip, another breath, I kept reading the e-mail. “Remember, all is not lost. We did our best, and that is all anyone could have expected,” she wrote. “We had some memorable experiences and on the drive we saw wild turkeys and wildflowers cutting through the morning mist. We were once again reminded that it is not the destination but the journey—and this is as true in sage fields as it is with our lives.”
With my next sip I drank to the women who reminded me of these eternal truths. Though my mind and emotions were tempted to just see lost revenue that would slow the building of our business and the launch of the café, the journey of healing with a community was far more important, and making the journey well requires waiting. The women of Thistle Farms know the significance of waiting well: All the years of waiting to be released from prison, all the time spent walking the streets waiting to be picked up, all the waiting for change becomes the grounding for the hard work of healing. The sage is struggling and I want to get back to it as soon as I can, but it can wait and I can choose to be at peace right here, right now.
The ritual of tea, whether in a formal ceremony or sipped with intention to wait in peace on the way to another event, enhances the experience of one of the world’s oldest brews. Bad habits and rituals can hold us back like oppressive old histories that keep us from enjoying the cup right before us. Rituals get us back on track and remind us there is always something new to learn, discover, and incorporate into our very own tea rituals. Within an expanding ritual around tea, you’ll find new depths of your spirit in your breath over the steam, in the reflective vision of your gaze, and in the ability to hold on to a single moment as if it were eternity itself. Ritual makes fresh the ancient way and can lead us to a new place that is like an old home we have been searching for. Rituals remind us that our path doesn’t have to be complicated to be rich. It doesn’t require tons of maps and manipulations to be beautiful. A simple old path walking toward justice is our calling. We are urged on by the hope that, if we keep walking, we will keep following a tea path garden by a small creek and maybe someday reach a river where justice rolls. We can keep following the good rituals that can free us and bring justice and freedom to all parts of the world.