"Tea is all of these things and more — or less? This delicious ambiguity was voiced best by the great seventeenth-century Japanese tea master Sen no Rikyu, who described his way of performing tea ceremony as Wabicha, or 'the tea of simplicity.' He wrote:"
Tea is nothing but this:
First you heat the water.
Then you make the tea.
Then you drink it properly.
That is all you need to know.
"More recently, San Francisco tea entrepreneur Roy Fong said, in one of the finest interviews here, that the wisdom of tea is inexhaustible. 'The beauty of it,' he says, 'is that it allows you to directly communicate with nature.' He adds that if you take the time and trouble to learn about the long journey that the tea made to reach you — the soil, the growing, the shipping, the refining — then you will better experience its complexity, perhaps even appreciate what he calls 'the spirits of tea.' This depth dimension of respect for tea, he promises, repays us with infinite dividends. 'Then you will understand a little bit more about the true meaning of life.'
"Since the mid-1990s, tea has played a vital role in what might be called the 'Slow Life' movement in Europe and the United States, where the cult of speed has driven many to the edge of exhaustion. Untold millions of people are realizing that more is not always more; sometimes less is more, if it means we are able to savor rather than gorge on life. In this spirit, tea offers more than mere liquid refreshment. It provides a daily opportunity to enrich our lives by relishing our time, which can lead to more energy, efficiency, and even happiness.
"Perhaps that is what Thich Nhat Hanh, the Cambodian Buddhist monk, meant when he said, 'We are most real when we are drinking tea.'
"The suggestion of the deeper meaning of tea is beautifully revealed by the following passage from the worldwide bestseller, Three Cups of Tea. A Balti tribesman, in Pakistan, is addressing the author, Greg Mortenson, who has returned there to build schools for the people who helped save his life:
" 'The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything, even die. Doctor Greg, you must take time to share three cups of tea. We may be uneducated. But we are not stupid. We have lived and survived here for a long time.' "
