Yay tea!

[teleidoplex]

Cor blimey, I taste like Tea. I am a subtle flavour, quiet and polite, gentle, almost ambient. My presence in crowds will often go unnoticed. Best not to spill me on your clothes though, I can leave a nasty stain. What Flavour Are You?

So, I haven't posted in several weeks, and when I do it's another quiz. I'm hoping to get more posting done once my 8 week classes finish. Right now they are the second most important thing in my life (Wizard being the first).

I needed to post this, though, because I was tea (I didn't even know it was an option, but keen). I like tea a lot. In fact, my entire esoteric philosophy is wrapped up in Tea. It's not as universally developed as most other esoteric philosophies, but it works for me.

I've been thinking about Tea a lot recently (well, I always think about tea, but I've been thinking about posting about Tea). I'm conflicted about posting about Tea, because I don't think that Tea is something that can be explained. I think trying to explain Tea is like trying to explain how to catch a wave. What's the point? Doing is the only way to understand being (and vice-versa, I suppose?)

Tea is wonderful because it is the simplest of things, yet at the same time is very complex. It is cooly quiet and contemplative, yet also hot and shocking. It appeals to all the senses, to the body, mind and spirit. It can be simpler to prepare than any other beverage, yet at the same time there is a huge complexity to it. This is true on many levels. On the personal preparation level, you can either fix a quick cup with a bag and hot water, or you can go through a variety of intricate rituals (from Japanese tea ceremony to Victorian high tea). On the global level, tea can be something locally grown and dried, or it can be part of an international colonial project that has worldwide (and usually negative) impacts. Tea's assumed simplicity sometimes obscures its widespread impact. It is the ultimate beverage trickster. Problematizations of Coffee or Coke are easily accessible, but tea is perceived as harmless. And it is. And it isn't. And that's the danger. When we think of tea, we don't think about the class issues that have been (and are) wrapped up in it. We aren't critical of orientalism, or gendered assumptions. Tea sits quietly in the background of everything and is overlooked, yet always there. Tea is the antithesis of Godzilla. Yet oddly, I think Godzilla might understand tea on an embodied level.

By association, tea can be and mean anything and everything. And yet it's just tea. And ultimately it feels like all of these thoughts and associations are absurd. That you've taken constructed subjectivity to its ridiculous extreme. And all you're left with is a simple cup of tea. And maybe the beginnings of understanding the Tao.

Kitsune Zen -- to understand the Tao, drink tea. If that doesn't work, get somebody to hit you over the head repeatedly with a big stick until you understand. Then drink tea.

Comments

Can I get you on my clothes just to find out?

[princess706.livejournal.com]

I like tea. I'm not much of a tea snoot... I just know what I like, and sometimes, it really is the cheapest powder-y-est Chinese green in the store, but I think it's good. I wish habing tes at 4:00 was still something people did, though. It would make a nice cap to a lousy work day... and think of the little sandwiches! Mmm...

yes, everything comes back to food... :)

mE

[gollumgollum.livejournal.com]

gollumzen of the day: if you don't like tea, make sure your assailant has a very big stick.

[moonandserpent.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm.... Tea. I love tea. I'd like to think I understand tea. Although I doubt it's the same understanding of tea that you posess.

Mmmm.... tea. I hopefully will have tea this eve.

tea continued

[moonartemis76.livejournal.com]

I understand tea... but you knew that

Tea in texture, taste, and smell

[bugsy-siegel.livejournal.com]

Loved your post..it got me thinking about all the tea I love and how even my new perfume smells like Earl Grey (its Bergamot by the Body Shop), and after having worn this perfume everyday for a week I had go out and buy a box of Earl Grey because I did not have any in the house. And then I thought about the day after your graduation when I was still a very novice tea drinker and I put lemon and cream in my tea. But now I know better, and I buy good cream and flavored syrups or sometimes flavored creamers and put in sugar and mix and drink and enjoy. I think about Tea in Guatemala, and in Mexico where I had to bring my own boxes, having planned on being there for a month, only to have my host mom make me the best pure cinnamon tea in the world.
Off I go now to write about Guatemala, where they grew coffee because the climate is not right for tea, and where coffee drove people off their lands and into the fields to pick hundred pound bags for less than 3$ a day....how much do the people who pick tea in India make, I wonder what a history of Tea growing countries would show, would it be just as sad and devastating as the coffee producing countries like Guatemala, Brazil, and Columbia. Can we divide the world not by language but by which beverage they produce and whom the produce it for, Coffee by Latin America and Africa for the United States, Tea by India, China, and Where else? for England, the US, and ? my thoughts drift and I babble...off to drink Te de Canela (cinnamon tea)