“From the beginning of time, poetry, especially haiku, has been used to convey the most important of messages. This year, we invite you to express yourself – your views and feelings – about these themes through the time-honored medium of haiku.

Create a haiku that reflects your vision of tomorrow based around Change, Hope and Progress and send them to us for a chance to have your haiku featured on one of our TEA’S TEA bottles next year.”

The Haiku Project 2009 – For Change, Hope & Progress

As additional inspiration from Japanese poetry forms, here is the jisei no ku (辞世の句), or death poem, written by Yukio Mishima as an element of his full ritual seppuku. Apologies for not presenting it in the original Japanese. You can find it here if you can read Kanji.

“A small night storm blows
Saying ‘falling is the essence of a flower’
Preceding those who hesitate”

In a more strictly tea-related vein, Sen no Rikyu, the man most responsible for the development of Chanoyu (the Japanese tea ceremony) in the 16th century also committed ritual suicide.

“According to Okakura Kakuzo in The Book of Tea, his last act was to hold an exquisite tea ceremony. After serving all his guests, he presented each piece of the tea-equipage for their inspection, along with an exquisite kakemono, which Okakura described as “a wonderful writing by an ancient monk dealing with the evanescence of all things.” Rikyu presented each of his guests with a piece of the equipment as a souvenir, with the exception of the bowl, which he shattered, uttering “Never again shall this cup, polluted by the lips of misfortune, be used by man.” As the guests departed, one remained to serve as witness to Rikyu’s death. Rikyu’s last words, which he wrote down as a death poem, were in verse, addressed to the dagger with which he took his own life:

Welcome to thee,
O sword of eternity!
Through Buddha
And through Daruma alike
Thou hast cleft thy way.”

- excerpted from source linked above

When I was 10 years old, my mother–a newly minted consular officer with the U.S. Department of State–received her first posting: Istanbul, Turkey. This was an exciting and exotic experience for a 10-year old girl, and my first weeks there were full of introductions to new experiences, new culture, new sights, and new foods. And one of those new things was çay (pronounced cha-yee, though the second syllable is very short and almost a dipthong), the Turkish way of serving black tea.

Infused or brewed hot beverages weren’t really part of my life at that stage. This was long before branded custom-made coffee in takeout cups and status-symbol teas became a standard part of the American cultural landscape. My mother drank neither coffee nor tea; my grandparents were coffee drinkers, but it wasn’t a major ritual for them, simply something they had a cup or two of (often decaf, percolated please) in the morning or after dinner. I had no history or culture of taking a hot beverage regularly, let alone as a particular ritual of serving and socializing.

I don’t remember the exact details of the first time. It might have been in a café, or possibly in a private residence, likely with some of my mother’s co-workers from the consulate. I do remember being startled that I was being served tea, since in my world up until that point, hot brewed beverages were something for adults. I was also startled at the way it was served: not in the typical porcelain cup with a saucer that I knew from my grandmother’s china collection, but in an elegant fluted glass set on a matching glass saucer. (I can’t recall if the glass and saucer were decorated. Plain glasses are common in cafés, the same way coffee shops here in the U.S. will have simple white stoneware coffee cups. The fancy banded or etched glasses were more common in private homes and upscale hotels.) The tea itself was dark, almost as dark as coffee, and bits of tea leaves swirled in the glass. (I never deliberately cut my çay with water; I don’t think I knew that was an option. Whatever strength the host or establishment provided was what I drank.)

My first taste was almost certainly tentative, and I almost certainly burned my tongue. It was powerful, bitter, deep and dark-tasting, and rather overwhelming to my young palate–a foreign, odd experience, yet not really unpleasant. I was offered cubes of sugar, and I took them, dropping them in one by one and stirring with the small spoon after each one, tasting to see when the liquid in my glass stopped being overwhelmingly bitter. Three was the final count on the cubes. This resulted in a deeply sweet liquid with a slightly bitter aftertaste that I found very pleasant. It was the way I would take my çay for the two years we lived in Istanbul, and it has almost certainly affected the taste I’ve since developed for rich black teas brewed long with sweet elements to them (though I no longer put sugar in my tea as a matter of course).

I have myriad wonderful memories of moment and sense wrapped up in my experiences with çay. The sun shining through a glass as I stirred in my sugar, glinting off the metallic bands or delicate etching of the glass, giving the tea a gorgeous, translucent reddish cast, and highlighting the swirling bits of leaves that were never entirely filtered out. The friendly noise of cafés, filled with raised-voice Turkish arguments (always friendly) and the clatter of backgammon pieces and the moist warmth of steam and the red-bitter scent of tea brewing. Dozy Saturday mornings spent at our favorite rug vendor, located in the oldest part of the Grand Bazaar (the part that was originally a caravansarai), where they would give us çay to sip while we sat in the stone alcoves in the walls and they spread rug after rug out before us for my mother’s review and approval, stacking the rugs in a pile that might reach three feet high by the time we were done, while morning sunshine slanted through the high window and highlighted the dust stirred up when the rugs were unrolled. Breakfasts during our school ski trips (yes, you can go skiing in Turkey!), rows of prepubescent kids seated on benches at long rough-hewn tables, served our tea out of white porcelain pots along with fresh-that-morning bread and sweet butter and rose-petal jam, a combination of flavors that even now makes me happy when I so much as think about it. Çay is an integral part of one of the most formative periods of my life, and deeply tied into my senses.

We didn’t continue with tea, let alone çay, once we returned to the U.S. My mother wasn’t interested in investing in a samovar or the time required for brewing and serving çay according to tradition, and I’m sure we would have found it difficult in those days to get Turkish tea leaves; and since we hadn’t had that history of regular tea-drinking before going to Istanbul, there wasn’t much to keep us doing it once we left. It would be a decade before tea returned to my life as a regular feature. But there is no doubt in my mind that çay is the foundation of the interest I developed in later years, and I treasure my memories of experiencing it in Turkey. I hope to return there and experience it again soon.

(allaboutturkey.com has a brief overview of the history of tea in Turkey and information on preparing çay the Turkish way. The articles “Taking Tea in Turkey” and “Turkish Tea in Istanbul” from turkeytravelplanner.com give a more…spirited view of the experience of çay.)

This adorable Japanese commercial is for a green tea made by the Thai company Unif. The ads were done by BBDO Bangkok. More of them, with English subtitles can be viewed here. The award-winning commercial featured on that page, called “Mother’s Day,” is brilliant. These cute-as-a-bug’s-eye caterpillars are called “worms” in the English translation of the advertising campaign name.

Introducing other people to Gongfu Cha by serving them tea can be a very rewarding experience. I have had the opportunity to do this a number of times over the past few months, and with the exception of a brother-in-law who did not have the attention span to remain at the table through the final infusion, the guests have been quite interested in the experience and have enjoyed it. The format of the ceremony lends itself nicely to a casual, yet highly formalized, environment. Conversation is fluid and encouraged – There can be be talk about the tea itself and talk about the tools of the service – The guests can gain information and caffeine simultaneously, tiny cups and tidbits of information at a time.

Serving tea in the Gongfu style to people unfamiliar with it does feel a little like prosletizing, particularly with all of the focus on the specifics of accoutrements and protocols and the reverence for the tea itself. But if people find themseves underhandedly indoctrinated into the world of Chinese oolongs and pu-erhs, that’s probably not such a bad thing.

Judging by the odor of my desk drawer at work, some of my stash had gone stale. Others were just abandoned in favor of other varieties – especially in the last several months, as I’ve developed a more discerning palate.

But how long do you keep tea, and how should you store it? This is a question that is asked over and over, so I did a little digging to see if I could find an answer that most people agree on – and that’s no easy feat. But there were some good guidelines to go by:

• Store in a dry place.
• Keep out of direct light – light will degrade tea.
• Please don’t store in the freezer or at any other extreme temperature.
• Store away from spices and other strongly-scented items.
• Outside of an air-tight container, tea loses its quality after 2-3 weeks.
• In an air-tight container away from light, tea should last six months to a year.

So, about half of my collection has been thrown out, with a group set aside to be brewed soon, or not at all. I got rid of a lot of grocery store varieties, and I’ve been collecting small tins from a local Indian market for loose tea storage.

I usually buy in quantities of 2 ounces or less. This gives me enough to try it several times and even share with friends, and I get to go back to the teashop on a regular basis and pick out something new – and now I have the room for it!

My other little issue is that I named this site Gongfu Girl, even though I didn’t know much at all about gongfu cha. To be honest, when you find a domain name like that available, you don’t pass it over. But I wasn’t just being pretentious. I was more hoping that I could document my experiences so that people could learn it with me, and it would be about growing into the Way of Tea as much as anything else. After the amazing weekend I just had, I have a list of teaware to find and buy, a lot of stories to tell, and a lot of inspiration to fuel my journey.

Among some of the things I enjoyed on Saturday was a trip with my husband to a tiny little shop on Queen Anne Avenue, The Teacup. We took a little side trip up there after enjoying crepes at Pike Place Market, and we got there just in time to be invited to sit at a table where the manager, Brett, was serving tea gongfu-style.

Brett is a very enthusiastic tea connoisseur, and his love for the leaf and the process really shines through when he’s sharing it with his friends and customers. We sat down with Brett and six other young men, and caught the last round of an oolong with a mellow, woody flavor. He then began the first infusion of pu-erh (designated sweet and smooth, a 2000 vintage), passing around bricks for us to see and smell, explaining the journey of the tea leaf from plant to beverage.

He brewed the tea in what I can assume was a yixing pot – a small clay pot that takes on the qualities of the pu-erh over time – and he decanted the dark liquor into a serving vessel as it was done infusing. The tea was poured first into tall, thimble-like cups, and we then transfered it to the drinking cup and raised the empty one to our noses to inhale the aroma.

It’s very hard to find those aroma cups for sale, but after inviting the rich, warm air into my nostrils, it’s an experience I don’t want to go long without. I have an intense urge to share it with my friends and family. This pu-erh had the distinct smell of walking through my favorite campsite just after a heavy rain, and I felt a strong personal connection with it. Smell is one of the most intense memory triggers, after all.

The taste of the tea was not disappointing. Again, like moss and pine needles on a wet day, but in liquid form. If I had known this fragrance and taste was available to me in my own teapot, I would not have waited so long to find gongfu cha or pu-erh in my own city!

We shared several infusions from the same leaves, and there were subtle changes with each round. As we finished, one of his friends took the captain’s chair, and he got up to assist me in finding some new teas to take home, along with my first gaiwan – a simple, white, porcelain cup, saucer, and lid.

So yes, I have more teas to share with you this week. Every time someone opened a canister of tea, the fragrance would surround me and hold me hostage. It sounds dramatic, but I really felt moved by these teas.

I made pu-erh with the gaiwan for my friends when I returned home. I got six infusions from one large tablespoon, and it had the same nostalgic effect on them as it did on me. I’m anxious to get a yixing pot that I can dedicate to pu-erh, and be witness to the characteristics that the tea imparts with the clay as time goes by.

In the meantime, I will be returning to The Teacup to buy wonderful tea and teaware and to learn more from Brett, who has a lot of knowledge and passion to share. He serves gongfu cha every Saturday afternoon at 1:00. The shop is at 2207 Queen Anne Avenue.

“Tranquility,” an aesthetic concept unique to Tea, comes with the constant practice of the first three principles of harmony, respect, and purity in our everyday lives. Sitting alone, away from the world, at one with the rhythms of nature, liberated from attachments to the material world and bodily comforts, purified and sensitive to the sacred essence of all that is around, a person making and drinking tea in contemplation approaches a sublime state of tranquility. But, strange to say, this tranquility will deepen even further when another person enters the microcosm of the tearoom and joins the host in contemplation over a bowl of tea. That we can find a lasting tranquility within our own selves in the company of others is the paradox.

More next week

“Purity” through the simple act of cleaning, is an important part of a tea gathering – in the preparation beforehand, the actual service of tea, and, after the guests have left, the storing away of the utensils and the final closing of the tearoom. Such actions as clearing the dust from the room and the dead leaves from the garden path all represent clearing the “dust of the world,” or the worldly attachments, from one’s heart and mind. It is then, after putting aside material concerns, that people and things can be perceived in their true state. The act of cleaning thus enables one to sense the pure and sacred essence of things, man and nature.

When the host is cleaning and arranging the areas that the guests will occupy, he is establishing order also within himself; this order is essential. As he attends to the details of the tearoom and garden path, he is no less attending to his own consciousness and to the state of mind in which he will serve his guests.

Tomorrow: Tranquility

“Respect” is the sincerity of heart that liberates us for an open relationship with the immediate environment, our fellow human beings, and nature, while recognizing that innate dignity of each. Respect gives structure to a tea gathering and orders the exhanges among the participants, primarily through the standardization of tea etiquette. But in a much broader sense, without regard for appearances, this principle presses us to look deeply into the hearts of all people we meet and at the things in our environment. It is then that we realize our kinship with all the world around us.

Tomorrow: Purity

“Harmony” is the result of the interaction of the host and guest, the food served, and the utensils used with the flowing rhythms of nature. It reflects both the evanescence of all things and the unchanging in the changing. The host interacts with the guest, both thinking of one another as if their roles were reversed. Before tea is served, the host will offer a sweet to the guest, or often a light meal. In both cases, what is served should be appropriate to the season. Utensils should be in harmony with each other and the mood and theme of the tea gathering. The principle of harmony means to be free of pretensions, walking the path of moderation, becoming neither heated nor cold, and never forgetting the attitude of humility.

Tomorrow: Respect