Living Tea

What happens when the person running the account is also drinking the inventory

The autumn equinox lands today in the northern hemisphere. Light and dark come out even, and everything after it leans toward the yin half of the year.

That’s the turn into Metal, the season of letting go of what isn’t essential. The trees are already doing their half of it, dropping leaves without any apparent difficulty, having first pulled back everything worth keeping.

Here’s a short ritual for doing yours.

Comment EQUINOX and we’ll send you the full post, with more on Metal season and the act of letting go.

Our social media strategy is one person and a lot of puerh

Most people come to teaware with a shopping list. Which clay is best, which pot is correct, what to buy first.

Those are the wrong questions. The real one is what this vessel does to the tea, and whether that’s what you want it to do. Porosity, wall thickness, shape, pour speed: the maker settled all of it before the pot reached you, and every one of those decisions arrives in your bowl.

All of this comes out of Colin’s classes at Vessel. Swipe for what each one changes, then comment TEAWARE and we’ll send you the longer version.

Tea in Song Dynasty China (960–1279) was practiced with real refinement. Compared to the Tang Dynasty before it, Song tea drinkers had higher standards. They wanted pure tea without additives, and they developed a whole practice around bringing out the best of a fine green powder.

The method was involved. Compressed tea bricks were ground into powder, and water was boiled separately in a spouted ceramic bottle. To know when the water was at the right temperature, tea masters listened to the sound of the kettle — a practice tea people still use today. The powder was placed in a preheated bowl, and hot water was poured in while the tea was whisked into a bright, foamy drink. The most prized part was the white froth on top of the green tea, and jet-black bowls were favored specifically because they made the froth look even brighter.

This whisked green tea method traveled to Japan with Zen monks in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, where it eventually became Japanese matcha and the tea ceremony.

But much of what Song tea masters did still shows up in how tea is drunk today. Practices like listening to the sound of the water, warming the bowl before pouring, and choosing teaware with the tea in mind are almost a thousand years old, and they’re still used in tea preparation today.