Tea is finding a voice in a very contemporary art form.

This post is a slight deviation from my original question: What is it about tea that has inspired artists for thousands of years?  I’ve spent hours viewing some extremely contemporary tea inspired art and the motivation is totally transparent.

“Calm-A-Sutra” is a video competition created by The Tea Council of the USA, Inc. to award a $20,000 scholarship to the best video posted on YouTube illuminating the health benefits of tea. Last year, 2007, was the first annual competition in which there were 70 entries. This year there are more than 500. And the grand total of Calm-A-Sutra videos is now 615. This is an amazing collection, most of which are hilarious. But they each show us something of how the upcoming generation of tea lovers gives a contemporary voice to the ancient beverage. And we can certainly appreciate the way in which our message is being conveyed worldwide.

August 6th was the deadline. We’re approaching the final judging and should hopefully hear an announcement of the winner later in August. Today I invite you to take a look at what the tea has inspired at www.youtube.com. Type “calm-a-sutra” in the search bar. Or just click on this link -

Search YouTube for Calm-A-Sutra

You will find hundreds of entries - each of them approximately 2 minutes long with some titles like:

A Cup of PersonaliTea

I drank some tea and i liked it…

Calm-a-Sutra: The Sensual Side of Tea

Calm-A-Sutra ~~Mindfulness of Tea

Crouching Tea-ger Hidden Dragon (Calm-a Sutra of Tea) ( …

Green Tea & Your Brain - Calm a Sutra

And two of these titles received more than 20,000 views in the first week of posting. Can you guess which ones?

Why should we care about this new art experience?

We often talk about how to communicate tea to a broader audience. Tea people talk to tea people. News of a good tearoom is largely shared by word of mouth. These messages are being viewed by people around the world and 20,000 views for a single video in a week is a significant number. In internet marketing circles a view is now called an eyeball. And when I do some simple math, videos like these are bringing a lot of new eyeballs to tea. And these are eyeballs that might never have noticed the opening of a new tearoom or a new virtual tea store without a bit of internet searching.

The probability that they may bring new consumers to tea is high. Don’t you want to be knowledgeable if one of these new customers visits you? Could you create an event in your tearoom based on these videos? Do you know someone in your community who should enter next year’s Calm-A-Sutra Scholarship Contest? Not that I suggest that this detracts from the more classic view of tearooms - Asian, Victorian, Country and Sophisticated Urban - but I think we can celebrate the passion for tea brewing beyond these perceived borders. In fact, I suggest that there will be interest in most of these videos by all ages in all groups of those devoted to our favorite brew.

The videos are fun! Some are LOL (laugh out loud) great. And I think that the winner of the 2007 Calm-A-Sutra is hilarious.

Tea. Tougher Than You Think.

Tara Taylor is the creator of the video and the winner of the Calm-A-Sutra scholarship prize. An interview on The Early Show with Tara and with Joe Simrany, President of The Tea Council of the USA is also available on YouTube.

The Early Show Interview

I believe that we are all challenged to introduce tea to new consumers both as a way of building the specialty tea industry but also as an opportunity to replace more harmful beverages and foods with what we know to be healthy in many ways. If you create a way to share these videos in your tea business, I would love to have you add the story by commenting on this blog.

Warning!

YouTube-ing can be extremely time consuming. Keep an eye on the clock while you browse. There are over 600 videos in the Calm-A-Sutra category and more than 70,000 listed if you search for “tea”. Be selective and know when to click on the next selection - and when to stop.

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