Life as a Cup of Tea

"'The key to tasting tea,' she said, 'is to never judge it. Some teas open in the beginning and fade quickly, some teas take 6 cups to open and last longer,'" writes Mina Lee, as she steeps in her first experience with a tea ceremony and the words of Chan teacher, Mudeng. Lee observes, "The way the leaves are picked, the water used, the ceramic used, the tea pourer, how they hold the lid to steam the tea, the minutes and seconds they change the steep time by -- that all affects the taste of the tea. And the most important besides all of that is You, who is tasting the tea -- your own capacity to sense vibrational energies, subtleties in flavor, and allowance of the tea to take you on a journey from where it came -- this is different for each person."

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