Tea and Zen

Believe it or not, most days I only drink one tea, occasionally two. I may plan on drinking more than one, but that almost never works out. Two is workable, but three? Nah.

My typical gong fu set up

Aside that, I have a bit of an issue with caffeine. I'm somewhat sensitive to it so I have to watch myself. It doesn't keep me up at night or give me jitters, but it makes my heart most unhappy. You never make your heat unhappy, that's asking for a very bad time.

I also try to take my time to enjoy my tea. If I'm having a very fine Japanese green I'll sometimes start with two five minute cold brews and then have three or four 60C brewings. Other times I'll be able to get three to five 60C brewings without the cold start. If I brew in a fashion very similar to gong fu I may only get one or two. Since Japanese greens don't give you even close to as many brewings as many Chinese teas, I'll use more leaf than I would if I was having any Chinese tea (and other countries as well, typically). But, I'll probably only have that one tea. Over the course of the day, assuming I'm sitting down to really appreciate the tea, it'll take me several hours even if I am drinking the cups in rapid succession.

The same applies to other teas, especially when brewing them grandpa style. I do not rush when brewing grandpa style. If the water gets too cool for my liking I can get my tumbler down to 2/3rds full and add some fresh hot water. A tea that can withstand at least 10 brewings gong fu style will take me at least an hour if I'm not taking notes to make a review on here. When taking notes the hour will turn into two or three since I'm trying to figure out what I'm tasting, what I like and dislike, and probably brewing the tea in more than one method if I have a fair amount of leaf.

Total, regardless of the type of tea I am making or how long it takes me to sip on it, I drink at least a liter of tea every day. I think it is fair to assume my average is 1.5L.

In the past I would have three or four different teas in one day. I don't know how I did it, but one thing is for sure-- I didn't appreciate the tea at that time as I do now. I didn't spend so much time trying to figure out the nuances that the particular tea I am sipping on has. It honestly wasn't until I started to only drink one tea a day that I was really able to figure out what I was tasting, verbalize it, and talk about it (though there were other factors involved as well. That's but one piece of the puzzle).

My one exception to this is if I wake up late and don't have time to make tea in the morning. I'll brew up some Earl Grey, Irish Breakfast, or genmaicha in my tumbler and run. Once I am done with school and work I will sit down and enjoy a tea. I suppose this is another exception, but my family likes to have tea time in the evening, so if they request tea time I'll have a second tea with them then.

That didn't happen as much as it needed to last year. This year I have decided that I need to set aside at least an hour every day so that I can enjoy some tea. It's not so much the tea that I find calming, but rather the preparation. Sharing it with people is a pleasing bonus. That always makes tea taste better.

All of this being said, lately I've been trying to drink more than one tea a day. I still have 115g of tea from Verdant Tea to go through. It's five different teas, four of which are 25g and the remaining being 15g.

That is a lot of tea, especially considering the fact I made that huge What Cha order. This large amount of tea from VT has me backed logged. After opening the 25g packages I'd rather not let them sit around to get old. That'd be a waste.