It might be said that the art of tea is the craftsmanship which transports the leaf from the field to the cup. And the spirit of tea is the poetry that we experience and are able to share it with a world vastly beyond ourselves.

Frank Hadley Murphy has written a book, The Spirit of Tea. When I spoke with him he said that he wanted to write a different kind of tea book. He has succeeded. It is poetry, history, science, memoir, and storytelling. He has put on paper some of the thoughts many of us reach for as we consider the way tea touches something deep within us. Beyond the health benefits and the business, we feel something . . . more. Or, as Frank Murphy begins his book,

“Science may be able to quantify tea’s effects on our bodies but it cannot quantify its effects on our souls and that’s exactly where tea shares with us her deepest mysteries. Her sobering humility resonates with our own original nature. Her subtle beauty reminds us of the beauty of our own perfection.  . . . Tea calls to our deepest selves and invites us to celebrate with it.”

We celebrate tea in many ways, almost all of which connect us in some way to our history. It is reassuring that thousands of years of tea and its migration around the world remind us that some of the worst times were a phase. We survived them. Our grandparents tell of the comfort they found in an afternoon cuppa when the world was at war and luxuries were scarce. We celebrate survival from the worst of times and are reminded that the best of times are equally as fragile.

If it were nothing else, the spirit of tea is enduring.

I believe it is the spirit of tea which continues to inspire artists to paint, sculpt, write plays, poetry, books and music in its honor. There are so few things which can become part of our daily lives that have such deep resonance. As Frank Murphy says, science cannot quantify this aspect of tea’s healthful benefits. There is no yardstick to compare the quality of the experience of tea 5000 years in our past. And dare we consider what tea might be 5000 years into the future.

I believe it is the spirit of tea that serves as a yardstick to measure the quality of communication in the Pakistani culture which Greg Mortenson discovers and describes in his bestselling book, Three Cups of Tea. The subtitle of the book is “One man’s mission to promote peace . . . one school at a time.”

I had the privilege to meet him at a recent reception and lecture in San Francisco. During the lecture he explained the inspiration of his title: sharing the first cup of tea we become acquainted, sharing the second cup of tea we become friends but it is when we share the third cup of tea that we are joined as a family. Over the third cup of tea we have the opportunity to share the peace of our own spirit with others.

I want to believe that humanity will still be celebrating life and tea in another 5000 years - that we will solve our current environmental, financial and political crises as we have in the past and leap forward through perpetual undulations of history. I credit the spirit of tea for allowing me to believe that peace is possible. If not in my lifetime, certainly it is possible in the lifetime of the plantations where our finest leaves are grown. When I think of what tea has survived so far, it does not seem unreasonable to dream.

“Tea has a way of softening us, making us vulnerable and receptive. If we take the time and continue to sit quietly in our chairs, savoring the taste and the moment, we may remember not only where we mislaid our spectacles but also where we have mislaid our dreams.” . . . Frank H. Murphy from his book, The Spirit of Tea.

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