GONGFU ony Cerem TeaCultivating Calm by Josie Weaver The Gongfu Tea ceremony is as has always enjoyed tea of every kind, much about enjoying good tea as it I was riveted. At another GongFu Tea is about the active choice you can Ceremony, the Tea Master’s make to set aside life’s pressures assistant played a traditional piece of and remember what you value and music of the guqin (the ancient hold dear and close to your heart. In Chinese string instrument related to my first trip to China, our group was the zither), and the delicate plucking treated to the Gongfu Tea ceremony and sliding of the musician’s fingers varieties), water, mood, taste, by various Tea Masters. made a haunting music that reminds aesthetics, timing, and friends you me of luscious green fields of tea enjoy tea with. Each of these plants in a vast countryside. contributes to the experience of tea. The Chinese name “Gongfu Tea” The place your The ceremony can last for hours as ceremony translates to “tea with skill” we keep pouring water over the tea comes from where the word “gong” means work, leaves to make a new infusion and and the word “fu” means way or has the Qi of the and take in the conversation when method. Anything can be like that: we have tea with friends. Going your “gongfu” of dance or public region, which you slowly and enjoying the simple speaking, for example, means you things like the sound of water boiling care about your craft and that you take in when you can nourish us in a deep way. practice and get good at it over time. In the Gongfu Tea Ceremony, the smell it and When you approach things in this teacups are very small, which are manner, you care about details and intended for momentary tastings and drink it. enjoy the small improvements and multiple infusions throughout the tea At one ceremony, we sat around a moments of revelation and discovery ceremony. The tea ceremony can table made of what looked like highly that come from applying yourself and last for hours, but what can happen polished old wood while the Tea paying high quality attention to is a feeling of losing a sense of time Master prepared the tea. Every elements and features about what and entering a timeless quiet. When gesture of the ceremony has a you are doing. When you apply this this timeless quiet is shared with purpose and meaning. There are approach to tea-making it means you friends, the conversation during the specific tools and utensils just for cultivate an attention to “tea” details– tea ceremony can be uplifting and tea-making. As a Westerner who including the tea itself (its many meaningful. GONGFU Tea Ceremony Cultivating Calm In learning how to do this with tea Gongfu Tea Ceremony Gongfu Tea Ceremony Steps: (as with anything), there is a level of At the heart of the Gongfu Tea experimentation. One tea master Ceremony is an attitude of caring and advises to seek the highest quality observing. This takes time, and it can 1. Set a time and place for your ingredients from the most lead to a natural inquiry: what does it tea time. knowledgeable people when mean to make or take time for simple 2. Know your tea to choose your choosing tea and equipment. The things like drinking a cup of tea? search does not have to be fussy or tea. Simple leaves brewed in hot water, expensive as long as we bring a 3. Procure and arrange your tea sense of fun and discovery to our only that and nothing else. This utensils. exploration of tea. amounts to doing only one simple thing. This can be a challenge in our 4. Have your hot water ready. modern-day culture where we rush 5. Measure your tea and place through things, and where speed is into the Teapot. highly rewarded and valued. It can be 6. If your tea leaves call for it, you a weird feeling to speed through things and “get them over with” day rinse them. after day. You might not even notice 7. Add the hot water to the tea this is happening except that things leaves. may feel like they require a lot of 8. Preheat your tea cups. energy to do and get through, or impatience starts to settle into Do the next steps in complete whatever is going on. But what is silence. really happening as you rush, or 9. Pour tea into the waiting when you start to feel you are not fast teacups and offer them to the enough to keep up? It is as if you are guests. using one experience to “get” to the next one. At worst, it feels that there 10. Pause just before the first sip. is not enough time, and this can feel 11. Take three sips. like pressure. What if you chose the 12. Repeat. opposite? What if you chose to do one thing and do it with kindness, Gongfu Tea Ceremony Steps patience and attention? This is the 1. Set a time and place for your tea inner mindset of the Gongfu Tea time. Ceremony: Just for a moment, step You can arrange to meet friends or away from the speediness of life to sit do this for yourself. The most important features of the down, breathe, and then brew and Gongfu Tea Ceremony are your drink tea. 2. Know your tea to choose your inner mindset (the state of your Here are the steps that are generally tea. Let your tea choice not be guided “heartmind” or inner attitude that followed in the Gongfu Tea Ceremony by convenience alone. This means, includes your thoughts and with some annotations. See the be a little curious about what the feelings), your personal sidebar for the “short” version with just tea looks like and where it comes commitment and exploration, and of the steps. Just like in cooking and from. The tea leaf represents all course the pure tea and water. The making something to eat in the plants and is the result of the earth essence of the Gongfu Tea kitchen, your experimentation and Ceremony is the valuing of truly and sky (rain) mixing in a divine creativity come naturally over time. simple things, which indeed are the balance that feeds us physically very things that sustain us. and spiritually. The place your tea GONGFU Tea Ceremony Cultivating Calm comes from has the Qi of the tea you can invite a playfulness and Not all teas require this. But if your region, which you take in when you an appreciation for the right tools for tea is to be rinsed (as is the case smell it and drink it. If tea bags are the task. Good tea utensils will feel with red Pu-erh teas), you do this all you have, take the time to open good in your hands, and they will with roughly half a teapot of hot the bag and gaze at the leaves and perform when you need them. water. get a feeling for what the plant was 7. Add the hot water to the tea like before it became tea. 4. Have your hot water ready. A dear friend recently made a leaves. Boiling water is a little-appreciated mysterious gift of tea to me at a Once your water and leaves are skill. Tea master Solala Towler says social gathering. The first thing I did together, the brewing process begins. was take the lid off the container to that to boil water you want the water This is a good time to watch leaves gaze at the leaves and take a good “to dance.” So this means, you want uncurl if your teapot is transparent. It long smell. The shape of the longish fresh water, and you want to get a is also a good time to simply breathe leaves was like small twigs with a sense of the water changing from and contemplate the nature of time greenish-gold hue, and the smell liquid to gas, which is what happens and waiting. Either way, it is the time was earthy and floral and almost when water boils. There is a sound to reflect on the five elements that vegetal. It was second harvest Lung water makes when it dances, as it come into play for all tea brewing: the Jing (Dragonwell) from Hangzhou, turns to steam. This is hard to track fire that makes the water hot, the China. My friend is well-connected in the microwave, so see if you can water itself, the wood and twig of the to friends in China, so this tea, I use a sauce pan that sits on the tea, and the earthen clay of our thought, would be really good. So, I flame or an electric kettle. A watched teapot and cups. The element of the felt my friend’s gift of tea needed pot never boils, but your patience metal is not just the kettle, but the slow and proper attention of a and observation tells you when the something else that emerges. The gold of our awareness! Gold is that tea ceremony, and not the rushed water begins to dance and boil. For morning commute tea I grab before highly valued substance that can some teas, this is too hot! So, you driving in traffic and facing the work seem hidden in the earth and earthly want to make note of the day. concerns.