Green Tea Forum

Shirley · White Belt Joined: 05 Feb 2007 Posts: 29 Location: NC

I started drinking green tea to get rid of a rash. I thought coffee was too acidity.

Why do you drink green tea?

Chip · Posted: Feb 06, 2007 2:09 pm Post subject:

I love tea...I hate coffee. I also like that it is a healthy alternative and so diverse. I love the preparation of tea...a kind of personal tea ceremony.

wehayley · Posted: Feb 06, 2007 9:31 pm Post subject:

Hi Shirley, et. al.,

The following is from John Blofeld's "The Chinese Art of Tea." Blofeld was an Englishman who roamed about China for a number of years between the wars. If memory serves, he died around 1955. He wrote several important books, including a few on Asian culture, philosophy, and ancient medicines. I think he articulates the "tea mind" in ways that resonate with many. I know this is fairly long for this forum, but maybe it will provide some perspective...

One should recognize that drinking tea is something in itself, to be done for its own sake and not to fulfill an ulterior purpose; for only in this way can the drinker come to 'taste sunlight, wind and clouds'. This is a typically Taoist and Zen sentiment: to live is to be and do what best suits the Here and Now, not to calculate or philosophise about one's state of being and actions. Tea, unlike powerful drugs or alcohol, increases rather than dulls alertness and carries with it the essence of sunlight and mist, the spirit of sparkling mountain springs and a pleasant earthy tang. One might object that a common cabbage no less than tea is the offspring of earth and sky: true, but it does not have the special magic whereby tea mysteriously engenders empathy with nature and kinship with one's fellow beings.

Sitting quietly attentive to the soft crackle of a charcoal fire, to the kettle's song and the sound of liquid being poured from one vessel to another, one may find that these echo the wind soughing among the pines, the musical creak of bamboos or the sound of water falling from a height or chattering among pebbles in a shallow stream. Such sounds arouse a sense of kinship with the totality of being, a true appreciation of the Here and Now. The beauty and texture of ceramics promotes a sense of harmony. The fresh tang of green tea is reminiscent of the scent of early springtime foliage; its subtlety hints at the mystery and complexity of natural processes. The stimulating effects of drinking it harmonise two seemingly contradictory elements--sharpened alertness and a relaxation of tension. The mild elation that follows is less turbid than the intoxication produced by alcohol does not have to paid for later as do the ecstatic moods induced by certain drugs. True spiritual life must depend on something more solid than belief: namely the direct apprehension of realities that cannot be conveyed in words. As we have seen, the art of tea is highly poetic and therefore leads intuitively to the recognition of an intimate relationship with living beings, streams, trees and mountains.