Global Tea Hut

Those of you who have attended our ceremonies may have noticed some of us placing a thumb on the spout, an index finger on the button/pearl, and three fingers against the side of the pot. This isn’t a ceremonial gesture and shouldn’t be done as one. It is a way of listening.

Learning to communicate with the tea leaves, water and liquor and feel the proper time to decant is a necessary skill in tea brewing. Can you sense the tea’s frequency changing as the water becomes infused? Feel through your hand rather than thinking with your mind.

Like any art, tea is best made through sensitivity and presence. This gesture can help you become more attuned to the liquor in the pot, allowing you to decant by feeling rather than by timer. The best tea is brewed not with the hand or mind, but with the heart and soul.

A rare opportunity has opened and a few spaces have become available for our Zen & Tea Retreat in the Spanish Pyrenees, September 7-16, 2026.

For ten days, we’ll step away from the noise of modern life and into a rhythm of meditation, tea, silence, and mountain walks. Together, we’ll explore the ancient traditions of Zen and Tea through daily practice, tea ceremonies with Wu De, Dharma talks, and ten days of Noble Silence.

If you’ve been feeling called to deepen your practice, we’d love to welcome you on this very special journey. Please email [email protected] if you are interested in joining.

“Seva is not the performance of duty. It is the willingness to see what is needed, even before anyone has thought to ask, and to offer oneself to that need without calculation, without keeping score, without attachment to outcome. In Japan, there is a word for this: omotenashi. The art of genuine hospitality. The quiet, attentive reading of a room. The refilling of a cup before it is empty, showing up not because the task is visible or valued, but because something in you has learned to act in accordance to what the moment is asking for.

Being gongfu tea means carrying this orientation into everything, not just the pour and the temperature and the last drop shaken from the pot, but into how we show up for people. It is the small gestures no one asked for, and the bigger moves in the background no one ever sees, that quietly and profoundly changes the quality of what is shared.”

We invite you to join our newsletter to read Resham’s full reflection on service, presence, and leaning into Grace going out later this week. Join on the Global Tea Hut website or using the link in our Story now.

A new collection of teapots by 大謙堂Daqian 🌈Peter & Cici is now available on the Artisan page.
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We deeply admire the way Peter’s work evolves, allowing every batch to take on it’s own expression. This makes the teaware very special, unique, and irreplicable.
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Each teapot is handcrafted and the result of over a month of work. Every element is considered and balanced, creating a unique piece of functionable art that will enrich your life and practice for years to come.

We find it very profound that Nature has created something so attuned to our senses as to bring bliss to our bodies.
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This is a communication with Nature. The plants create fruit so that animals will eat it. The fruit is a sweet message designed for the bodies of the animals that are attracted to eat it, spreading the plants’ seeds around in gratitude for the nourishment given.
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There are many instances of such symbiosis in Nature, where plants attract animals or insects with something they need in exchange for propagation. And we are also a part of this great exchange—encouraging more tea lovers to drink tea so that farmers plant more tea trees, and also devoting entire magazines to better and healthier agriculture so that those future tea trees can thrive in gardens that are happier and healthier for them!
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It is no coincidence that tea is delicious and fragrant. It was engineered to reach us. The sensual pleasure evolved to attract us. This is a part of Tea’s language to us.

We’ve made two Chen Qi Nan Cauldron Sets available on the Artisan page, to support those exploring the deep and magical world of Boiled Tea.
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One of the brilliant expressions of this craftsmanship is felt in the way that the handles of the cauldron, made for lifting it off the brazier, won’t get hot, even after many hours of boiling tea.
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These are life long companions in one’s journey and life of Tea. May they bring you endless inspiration.

—And if you are interested in the method of Boiled Tea, we are currently offering 20 percent off of the online course with code PRACTICE. We hope you enjoy discovering how boiling tea exposes the deepest essence of the leaves.

“The thing I’ve repeated most to the friends and family I’ve had the opportunity to catch up with since returning to South Florida from the Global Tea Hut Annual Trip, is that I understand Taiwanese Oolong and Oolong as a genre of tea in ways I couldn’t have before.

All the “knowing” in the world would not have gotten me closer to the spirit of tea as this journey has.

There is no substitute for becoming a part of the process these beautiful plants go through on their way to tea lovers across the globe. There is nothing like picking, withering and roasting tea with your own hands. This was an introduction into the sort of tradition I’ve been longing for.”

To read Andre’s full reflection on this year’s trip, turn to our Story today. We will Highlight these shares for those interested to journey along with some of the participants who attended this years trip. We hope this will inspire many more to join us next year!

It is now the season to start drinking oolong, which offers us the wonderful opportunity to brew gongfu tea.
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As an invitation to explore the great lessons and joys that arise through gongfu tea, we’re offering a discount on our courses this month. If you’re feeling called to begin or deepen your practice, use code PRACTICE at checkout.
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Many of Oolong’s most delicate fragrances, textures, and energetic qualities only reveal themselves when the leaves are allowed to open together slowly, naturally, and in harmony rather than in fragmented stages.
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Ball-shaped oolongs in particular, are incredibly sensitive to how they are brewed. When these tightly rolled leaves all open at the same time, something remarkable happens. There is a blossoming of fragrance and quality of texture that simply does not occur otherwise. The liquor becomes smooth like silk, and the energy of the tea—its Qi—moves freely. This is not subtle. When we get it right, the difference is apparent in the cup.

As the warm sunlight of this season calls us outside, may we take our practice out into nature and spend a little more time gently seated beneath the open sky.

Feeling the breeze, the warmth of the sun, the Earth beneath us, and the water as it touches our lips—we remember that we exist within a miraculous web of life.

We never tire of seeing Tea shared around the world. Thank you for tagging us, friends!

There is a gesture in the bowl tea ceremony where the bowl is turned when it is offered to a guest. The host turns the bowl outward, offering the guest the part of the rim that has not been touched by their own hands. It is a gesture of hospitality that harks back to the oldest form of communal tea: a single bowl passed between people, each person turning it for the next.

With every turning of the bowl we bow to the lineage of those who carried this tradition before us. A simple gesture becomes a potent reminder that we are not separate from the past, but participants in a mystery that has been unfolding long before us and will continue long after we are gone.

May we raise a bowl to tradition, and the simple joy of sharing tea.