I met my nephew's house mate not long ago and found out that he was a tea lover. When he was over at my house, we had Chinese tea together, using my little tea set. I have known all the while that teas are enjoyed using special small, very fine pots and cups like mine. Mine is a cheap version and some tea sets could really cost a bomb. Anyway, it is only now that I learned that such tea sets are known as Kung Fu tea sets and there is a special tea ceremony in the Chinese community called Kung Fu tea ceremony, said to be a refined way of drinking tea and a specialty of Fukien, which incidentally is my father's dialect and mine, of course! Oh! I am so ignorant! There are steps involved in drinking tea, from washing the pot, washing the cup to making the tea, pouring the tea and so on and so forth. Tea drinking was originally an outdoor pursuit, an informal affair and over the years, Chinese imperial court adopted a custom of drinking tea. Tea were then drank in ornamental gardens and in pavilions and in modern times, at one time, in Malaysia, air conditioned tea houses were an in thing. How Kung Fu Tea Drinking Ceremony originated, I am not sure but really, with or without ceremony, drinking tea and chatting with anyone who cares to drink and chat is really a relaxing affair!
Comments
I like your idea. Life is sometimes about being alone and you can just make it meaningful by meditating and that's not just about drinking tea. Perhaps, drinking is just an aspect, but if you have come across Vipassana meditation, it's about breathing, it's about going through our life, being mindful of our actions. Right now, as we blog, we meditate!
Vipassana is only the first step. Next steps are more interesting. We meditate in ANY action, if we are conscious where we are and what are we doing (that happens very rarely), in other words, if we ENJOY what we are doing. Normally we don't.