The Way of the Tea Spirit of the Chinese Tea Ceremony

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The Way of the Tea Spirit of the Chinese Tea
Ceremony

• The Way of Tea is harmony, respect, purity and
  tranquillity. Tea brings forth the highest
  ideals of humanity, and where it is important to
  reflect on them for one's spiritual growth".
  ---Famous 16th-century tea-master, Sen Rikyu

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When one drinks green tea, one drinks the chi
of the freshly picked tea leaves. Black tea, on
the other hand, mellows with age and improves in
flavor. In China they say, the grandfather
plants and raises the tea bushes, the father
harvests the tea, and the son finally gets to
drink it. Drinking this, hightens awareness and
rids the body of disease, bringing one closer to
the divinity inside.
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Chado

• Chado (The Way of Tea)
• Chado experienced its prime during the the 16th
  century under the influence of the artist Sen
  Rikyu(1522 - 1591). The tea ceremony provided a
  venue and practice for recognizing the beauty of
  ordinary life. The aesthetic character of the
  ceremony was defined as wabi, or a rustic, simple
  quality -- a celebration of the humble aspects of
  life.
• The basic idea of Chado can expressed by four
  Chinese characters Reverence (kei) - great
  respect for all things and beings Harmony and
  peace (wa) - deeply felt, honest sympathy with
  everything and everybody Inner and outer purity
  (sei) - in thought, deed, and word. Quiteness
  (jaku)

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Finding The Way

• Finding the way is reaching Tanquility. Harmony
  can be formed among all matters in the world such
  as people, flowers, tea bowls, and so on. In
  fact, in a tea gathering, people talk to each
  other and to every piece of equipment a host uses
  in silence to form harmony in a tea room. People
  must respect all matters without their status
  that is, people must not discriminate. For
  example, people use a crawl-through doorway to
  enter a tea room, so even a person who has a high
  social status has to lower his or her head to
  enter in although he usually lower his head.
  Purifying spirits is very important since the
  ideal spirit of the ceremony is a sort of
  religious mind. Then, after people can get the
  three ideas, harmony, respect, and purity, people
  can finally embody tranquillity.

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The Tea Bush

• All tea is made from the same bushThe tea bush
  belongs to the Camellia family, hence its Latin
  name Camellia Sinensis or Chinese shrub. The tea
  bush is a hardy evergreen and its leaves are
  shiny and pointed with a wonderfully fragrant
  aroma. The flowers of the tea bush resemble white
  buttercups. All the tea requires acid soil and a
  warm wet climate with at least fifty inches of
  rainfall every year. Left to grow wild, the tea
  bush would blossom into a tree. However on
  commercial tea gardens the bushes are pruned to
  waist height for easy plucking. This is still
  performed by hand and is an extremely skilled
  process as only the bud and top two leaves from
  every branch are picked.

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Camellia Sinensis growing and picking

• Most Tea picking is done early in the morning to
  avoid the wilting and damage of the tea . Tea
  leaves are picked in April, on clear days when
  the leaves are tender.

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Three main types of Tea

• Green tea If the leaves are dried quickly
  without fermentation, they become green tea.
  Green teas are highly favored by the Chinese and
  Japanese, and increasingly popular in the West
  because of their health benefits. 
• Oolong Tea is semi-fermented, falling between
  black and green. The most famous, Formosa Oolong,
  originates from Taiwan (formerly Formosa Island).
  It has a unique peachy flavor.
• Black tea If the leaves undergo the full
  fermentation process, they become black tea.
  Black tea is most popular form worldwide,
  accounting for 77 of the worlds production.
  Green teas represent 21 and oolong teas account
  for 2.