How Do You Experience The Spirit of Tea?

In a recent article about the growing popularity of premium tea, it was said that tea is becoming a fashion accessory. I thought I felt a cough and sputter from the Spirit of Tea. But I have that tendency, to personify and romanticize tea. And my own particular version of tea snobbery imagines that camellia sinensis wants to be known as more than a trendy fashion statement. I’m drawn to the photographs of plantations covering hillsides under a protective cover of light fog and the legends of monks and masters who have devoted their lives to the celebration of tea.

I get carried away. It may be my Native American heritage that leads me to seek out a spiritual essence in all living things. But there are many different cultures around the world with mythology that personifies plants and animals to explain the way our welfare is bound together. I may want Tea to be something pure and innocent. But Tea might not mind being fashionable.

There is a camellia japonica grove in the wooded area of my back garden. My husband’s grandmother designed and planted this area under the native California redwoods and sequoias to include many distinctively non-natives. I plan to introduce the tea producing cousin, camellia sinensis, to the grove even though we don’t have the tropical climate to produce a proper cuppa. It’s the pure and innocent spirit of tea that I intend to honor. Will this also become a new fad?

I Get Carried Away

I was walking the dog through the camellias in the rain that was washing away the last of the Christmas snow. The blossoms are already forming, undeterred by the hard frosts that covered the walks in ice thick enough to skate on. The dog took shelter under the canopy in the grove and delighted in one of his favorite seasonal beverages. He held his head back and let the drops fall from the leaves into his mouth. I imagined him standing under the camellia we will plant here, reaching up for the liquor that snow will draw from the living leaf. I visualize my own visit a tea plantation; I hope to stand in the rain under an ancient tea tree with my mouth open.

It’s over the top romantic.  The Spirit of Tea snickers at my extremes.  Tea must have a sense of humor.

If the spiritual roots of beloved Camellia Sinensis find amusement in my romantic musings or in becoming a trend setter, it may be because Tea has endured so many trends and fashionable statements over thousands of years. It has maintained grace and elegance in the face of all that we humans have imposed.

As we change our calendars and entertain visions for a new year, we might also look for guidance and messages from The Spirit of Tea. Let us shed prejudice - like my knee-jerk reaction to the emerging fashion of tea. There is no reason that the spiritual nature of tea cannot enter our lives simultaneously through our hearts and our pocketbooks.

This is a new year of possibilities. Perhaps we can renew a commitment to our personal health and to the health of our world - one cup at a time - in The Spirit of Tea.

It could become a very popular thing to do.

I think Tea would smile.

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