How I started a tea practice…
I first sat for a Tea Ceremony with my lifelong mentor and dear friend Ourania from Ourano Yoga Life in Brisbane. It was almost 10 years ago and I still vividly remember looking down into the gorgeous amber-hued tea in my bowl and seeing the entire world. The earth seemed to speak to me from within that bowl; the shape and size so perfectly suited to the human hand, and the reverence with which it had been offered to me—gratitude hummed in my heart effortlessly.
In that bowl was a swirling, steaming brew of elements. Fire patiently heated the water while we settled into the space together, each of us inwardly contemplative in our own minds and bodies. Clay that had been expertly crafted into a kettle, teapot and bowls, and the tea itself, which felt like a gentle yet powerful presence in the room—it’s medicine drawn out from the heat into that sweet liquid. Water touched tea so briefly, yet was transformed completely by the potency contained in those leaves.
I was transfixed by the grace of Ourania’s hands in the intentional ritual of cleaning the bowls, cleaning the teapot and the leaves— taking the time needed without rush or hesitation. The subtle scent of incense, curling into the air with such delicate beauty and purposelessness. The whole thing was a dance of precision and organic flow, of tending so deeply to this very simple act of brewing tea. I kind of fell in love!
I began to attend Ourania’s tea ceremonies regularly and I discovered a place so welcoming, with such shared intention to simply be, that I knew I had found something that would become precious in my life. Here was a resonance in my spirit that I knew I wanted to follow.
While I was travelling in India studying yoga a couple of years later, a beautiful Slovakian couple served me a Shou pu’erh in simple teaware by a beach in Gokarna, and in that moment I picked up a thread that eventually led me to Taiwan. A week later, I was invited by a dear friend to go to a small village in Taiwan and learn how to serve tea ceremony at the same tea hut where Ourania had learned. So, being young and spontaneous, enamoured by the synchronicities and with a month to spare, I did! I spent a few weeks in Taiwan learning all about tea and tea preparation. Collecting water from mountain temple springs, visiting tea farms, picking young, green tea and processing it to bring home with me, and sharing many many bowls of tea in ceremony and over chats with new friends.
On the journey back to Australia my backpack was laden with tea and teaware and in my heart was a promise not only to continue nurturing my own relationship with tea, but to walk down the path of service and when I was ready, to begin sharing tea ceremony in my community. A year later I went back to Taiwan to serve as a volunteer on the same course I had attended in 2018. In the years since then, it’s been an ever deepening personal journey and love affair. Practicing cha dao or ‘the way of tea’ has become a primary devotion in my life and a pathway to embody stillness, sensitiviy and simplicity.
My tea practice allows me to be in intimate presence with nature, to invite the world into myself and learn how to listen—how to have a conversation with the moving elements of the earth. It’s given me a place to find discipline, and compassion when discipline is evasive! I find tea to be generous and forgiving, loving and understanding. Through tea I learn about patience, commitment and following the tao—the way. I’ve come to understand again and again what it means to slow down and how to do this when needed, how to live a life aligned with the pace of nature, and the pace of my own dreams as they ebb and change.
It’s my gift and honour to bring this beautiful form of practice to my community and I’m delighted to be offering two weekly tea sessions in Fern Tree, under the arms of kunanyi.
