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Tea Drinking as a Spiritual Practice
This original version of this post was aired in 2011 at the blog ThinkingThroughChristianity.com, which sadly is no more.
I just had a nice conversation with a student and with a colleague who is a specialist in Eastern religions. I learned that there is a variety of Japanese Buddhism that uses the preparation and drinking of tea as a meditative practice. I like that. As a lifelong tea drinker and abstainer from coffee, I have long been appreciative of Nietzsche’s remarks on the superiority of tea. So Buddhism and materialistic atheism both have their proponents of tea.
“Coffee spreads darkness.”
This makes me long for a Christian account of the spiritual significance of tea, or Christian advice for drinking tea as a spiritual practice. Christianity certainly has the theological resources for this sort of thing, and I’m sure someone has written on it. But I don’t know where to find it, and it seems easier to write something myself. So let’s start with the Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 4:
“For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (1984 NIV).
From this we learn that God invented tea, and that it is good. So here is my advice for drinking tea Christianly:
Prepare your tea carefully and reflectively, remembering the doctrines that God created the world and that God is good. As you drink your tea, be grateful for your tea, and say a prayer of thanks to God for inventing it and letting you share in His good idea.
I now (thirteen years later after writing the above) still pray regularly, “Lord, you are good, and you created all things, and you created all things good. Thank you for creating tea. Thank you for letting me enjoy your very good creation.”
Published in Religion and Philosophy
“Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.” – Sydney Smith
I, too, am a tea drinker who never developed a taste for coffee. My wife loves coffee, and I love tea, so I guess we complement each other.
I have different teas for different times of day. My favorite is China Keemun First Grade black tea, which is fairly robust. Another favorite is Twinings’ Prince of Wales. I never thought of incorporating prayer when I brew a cup, but it makes sense!
Coffee is a vice I picked up later in life. It was a foul substance to me as a youngster and younger man. Nowadays, there’s no 12 Step program or clinic that could ever break of the habit of drinking coffee. I do think tea is probably healthier and certainly less prone to crash with over consumption. However, I think the drinking pop or energy drinks is likely the worst beverage for uppers. Years ago I essentially eliminated pop from my diet – glad I did. I believe it’s a good idea for parents to try and prevent their kids from developing a pop or energy drink habit for health reasons.
I drink both coffee and tea, and they are different meditative practices.
For coffee, I use a moka pot. I grind the beans while preheating some water. I level the grounds in the basket. I put the hot water in the pot and place the basket and close the pot and put it on the burner at just the right flame. After 9 minutes, when I hear the pot and smell the first running, I move the pot to the side of the flame and watch the running.
Tea has its own ritual.
They are both good.
I read somewhere long ago that “G. K. Chesterton would confound the libertine and the puritan alike by saying grace before lighting a cigar.”
A very good fellow.
At our church, we have a social period after the worship service when we have coffee and cookies (or donuts or crackers and cheese). I have never known tea to be served there. Is that bad?
Yes. Although, have you been looking for it? My church usually has a carafe of hot water and tea bags.
Tea does not need to be pre-made in large quantities, nor should it be.
Generally true. In my case, I do have a three-quart teapot, but I prefer my tea steeped forever and cool. Most Englishmen would be scandalized.
I have watched the practice of the Japanese tea ceremony; the Morikami Museum provides a seasonal demonstration. And all the viewers get a taste afterward of their own mancha tea. It’s quite lovely to watch. A friend of mine created her own tea ceremony, with most of the ritual included, for a friend and me. It was beautiful. The beauty comes from being fully engaged with the whole process, making it a whole body experience. Lovely, St. A.
Edit: There’s a lovely little book called, The Way of Tea. It describes process and meaning.
We’ve never done that when I’ve been on duty. Maybe there is a secret stash somewhere, but I’ve spent time in the kitchen without ever coming across it.
Churches in Hong Kong don’t seem to have that problem.
Must be devil worshipers.
It’s the only possible explanation.
Sometime after I returned from 8 years in the UK, my father asked me if I knew the “proper” way to make tea. I did not. I was well aware of the controversy over whether or not milk should go into the cup first, but that was about it.
Anyway, I dodged Dad’s question by offering him George Orwell’s instructions for making tea.
The Brits were usually either bemused or offended by the idea of iced tea. On a hot day they like nothing better than a cup of hot tea for it’s cooling effect. I was skeptical, but it works if you live in a country that traditionally doesn’t drink any liquid below ambient temperature. The hotter your tea is, the more you will break out in a sweat, and the subsequent evaporation does feel cooling.
I remember there was an electric kettle and few mugs in the tack room at the stable…
The trick is to say, “Yes, but I prefer doing this . . “
Information I can use!
Our daughter-in-law is a Japanese citizen, and she practices and has performed the formal tea ceremony in Portland. Her mother is a teacher of the tea ceremony in Japan.
I make my coffee in a Keurig these days. I prefer Indonesian beans and a dark, not quite burnt roast. Coffee should grab one by the throat and shake it until one agrees that it is good.
I understand there are people who prefer a dainty cup, with subtle tastes and floral aromas. I too sometimes appreciate an occasional decorative beverage that’s a treat for all the sophisticated senses. That’s when I make tea.
“In Soviet Russia, tea makes YOU!”
Or something.
I relate to your statements about coffee and its addictive effects.
I decided a few years ago that maybe the reason for me to have this addiction, one that I cannot shake, is so that I could develop compassion for hard drug addicts.
I also feel the same way you do about soda pop and energy drinks.
These days, I find it difficult to sleep if there’s too much blood in my caffeine system.
But nowadays it has to be diet. Especially Diet Mtn Dew.
And then there are those who go for a very special tea – no boiling water required:
While Nietzsche may have been a beneficiary of some common Grace, I for one do not think it was very much, given his call to kill all Christians (see his Anti-Christ). Yes, I know, he supposedly was mad when he did that, according to some (his sister for one). Yet H. L. Mencken (who translated that screed in to English, and apparently approved of it mightily) claimed that it was always the core of Nietzsche’s thinking.
I find it of some interest that a devout Christian would be so enamored of the writings and ideas of such a vile of human being.
Same thing with Heidegger. I don’t know if St. Augustine is aware that Heidegger was, literally, the philosopher to the Nazis, a member of the Nazi Party. Heidegger signed the papers expelling Husserl, his colleague, from the University, (Husserl was Jewish). Perhaps Heidegger was even concerned about academic rivalry, as Husserl was a phenomenologist (on the verge of reintroducing the possibility of human transcendence into the philosophy of the time), which philosophy Heidegger completely rejected.
And, even after the War, when Jergen Habermas challenged Heidegger to recant his Nazism, Heidegger ignored him. A more vile person of education and supposed intellect could hardly be found.
Perhaps some day St. Augustine can explain his fascination with the most vile of humans, masquerading in intellectual garb, whose ideas have wrought such vast evil and destruction on humanity.
I’m sure I’ve read that book, but it’s been awhile. I don’t remember any advocacy of mass murder.
Madness–maybe.
Metaphor or other literary devices–very often in Nietzsche.
Well, I’m not exactly enamored, but . . . it’s good literature. And it’s good philosophy in that it develops an idea pretty well–that idea being atheism, and the development being in the direction of existentialism.
He’s like Kierkegaard–he’s exposing the bankruptcy of pseudo-Christian worldviews. He’s doing it from the opposite direction, but he does it well.
And his dissing of coffee is hilarious.
Yes, I know he’s a Nazi. A blight upon him, at least personally. He’s no Plato or Confucius either. But there is still some merit in his philosophy.
All this from liking Nietzsche’s diss of coffee?
Do I need to reiterate my fascination with the best of humans? Should I start with Confucius and Tolkien or just jump straight to Jesus? I do have another draft in the works on New Testament theology!