The pleasure of tea has always been a part of my life. I’ve collected beautiful tea cups and exquisite tea pots. I’ve designed, created and opened a tea room. I’ve sold the tea room and I continue to love tea and the sharing of it. I call tea the art of conversation.
When the warmth of the water refills the tea leaves with life as one is waiting for the steeping to progress….that moment enters into timelessness as the environment slowly opens and the art of conversation begins to unfold.
What is it about tea? The aroma, the fragrance, the vapoured steam gently rising as it is poured so gently into the cup…..
What is it about tea pots and tea cups? The size, the shape, the quality and the manner in which they are held and served.
Somewhere it is connected to a ritual so deep and so ancient. The ritual of preparing, sharing and giving. The place that opens around the beauty of tea is so delicate and yet so profound. It beckons a wakefulness, different from other drinks of the world.
The substance is water imbued with the essence of tea…. The essence of tea….holds within it a quickening of the senses, a quickening of the heart and an awareness of the mind….as if a silent bell rings a silent clock…..and time holds open the space that brings forth deep, yet simple words of poetry, of conversation, of daily consideration, within the quiet and solitude of tea.
Drinking tea inspires the presence and the lifting of a gentle veil of warmth and beauty, it quickens the formation of words out of the silence, and it innately opens a sacred environment where touching in becomes a way of living and conversation becomes an art.