Tea
in the spirit of mindfulness 3.0 this weeks’ tea is not a tea, but just tea. that means whatever tea you have, get into it. sure, there are starting points, but rigid tea is not the gongfu or “skillful effort” way. skill comes from your direct practice-effort. try different dosages, temperatures, vessels, styles of pouring. if you favor blacks, try sheng pu-erh. if wuyi “dark dragon”oolongs are your thing, experiment with tippy whites or first flush greens. being truly who you are is about exploring the edges of familiarity and comfort. to tea or not to tea? that’s not even a question.
METHOD:
to save you the sleuthing and maybe inspire tea-ing in the process here are some rough temperature starting points from cooler to hotter water. quantity+time depends on western or gongfu style so i’ll leave that to you. a rule of thumb os western is less leaf, longer steep. gongfu is lots of leaf, faster steep, multiple steeps. use a white gaiwan or teacup/mug to start so you can see the impact of temperature on color. the only bad way to make tea is that you don’t enjoy it.
Japanese Gyokuro – 50C/120F
Japanese Sencha – 80C/175F
Chinese Green – 80C/175F
White – 90C/195F
globaltea.ucdavis.edu/all-about-tea
redblossomtea.com
Light Oolongs – 94C/200F
Wuyi Oolongs – 94C/200F
Phoenix Oolongs – 96C/205F
Black+Puerh – 96-100C/205-212F