Tea Training 101: A Joyous Journey in the Senses

What is tea? Tea is at first a poison before medicine. This is the age of tea as a fantasy, of drinking from wild ancient trees and bewildering energies, of ceremonies with good intentions and toxic impacts - people telling you to just drink your tea. There’s so much more clarity and joy available, that perpetual blindness (willful or not) is a disservice to our good senses and the maturing of tea culture.  Even though I am in many ways a fellow romantic, the harm done by this all pervading attitude of standardlessness musing needs to be sorted out.   In this personal one on one single class I will give you the core fundamentals to understanding tea as 藥寶道 pharmakon, sumbolon, and Dao. 藥 Pharmakon - that which harms or heals.  Tea is understood as a hyper accumulator plant, and an herb with serious counter indications, needing processes of transformation to be safe as an everyday household staple. 寶 Sumbolon - what is shared returns us whole. Tea is a treasure of human culture that can