Tea

Tea

Nobody says "I'm going to grab a tea." We grab a coffee, because coffee is about going. Tea is not something we grab, because tea, fascinatingly, implies time. There is a ritual with tea. The only part of our favorite Zen Center that isn't open to the public? The teahouse. The place reserved for the ceremony of tea. To partake in the ritual of tea, which seems somehow elemental, we need no more than water, fire, and tealeaves. And a vessel to hold all of this.

I have a beautiful 150-year old iron-forged teapot from Japan that is such a powerful and beautiful object to be present with that we've included it in most of our films. The pot itself establishes space around it. Just looking at it reminds me to slow down. I'm not totally sure what's going on there. What I am sure about is that tea is both vitalizing and restful. A tea, technically, is made with tealeaves, leaves of the Camelia Sinensis, whereas a teasan is an infusion made from leaves, bark, roots, berries, seeds, and spices. So there is ginger and peppermint and lavendar teasan (we just call 'em tea). There are so many plants that you can infuse into water with beneficial effects. Many of these plants you can forage for. I'm the kind of person who has always wanted to live in a house where there was, in the kitchen, or pantry, some area with great bunches of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. We have a white sage plant in our garden that I cut back each autumn, and we tie up all the trimmed branches with cord and hang them to dry. Cilantro that goes to seed–same thing? Lemon balm, check. I like to buy cinammon in sticks, star anise and cardamom in the pod. In winter then, we can break dried leaves off the herbs, toss in a stick of cinammon, a star anise, break open a cardamom pod and bam: tea.

I like eating things I've caught, found, or grown. I like the idea that tea is a ritual that brings plants full circle, and that it's a ceremony. I find that drinking tea makes me feel tranquil, which is great when I want to feel tranquil. I'm not gonna lie–I also love coffee. But each of them has their place, and their velocity. When you make a cup of tea, inhale. Savor the delicious aroma. And know that in so doing, you are tying yourself back to our ancestors, who have been steeping, and brewing, and concocting since we discovered fire.