Given the span of time and efforts to immerse in leaves and the lives connected to tea, there aren’t many more satisfying additions than starting up a tea column (in joyous collaboration with Outpost Magazine). These pieces will comprise ‘The Tea Sessions’ and they’ll take place in the midst of blizzards in the Himalayas, be inundated with butter, formality in Tokyo, ripping tea buzzes in Taiwan or simply serving Paniolos from my own stash here in Hawaii. It is about a coming together and a kind of union, however informal.
The idea is based upon a set of tea journeys that involve some of the more epic characters, moments that rip into the very bloodstream, and spaces and efforts dedicated to the leaf. Though The Tea Sessions doesn’t and won’t really do justice to the characters and the intimate spaces, ‘tea’ is the inextricable resin that binds all of these elements together.
Inevitably most of these elements don’t necessarily involve the ‘best’ teas – or sometimes even good teas – but they all involve an immersion into – and efforts dedicated to stimulation and restoration…or just very large characters who know well the art of generosity, in a time that is so in need of this old code of simple giving and providing. A tea-fuelled set of journeys that touch upon the stimulant fuel but most often about a dive into the visceral moments that blow the whole internal system side open.
It will be about the tea, yes, as it is this vegetal elixir and panacea of which so much of the column is about – but it will also about attempting to conjure up the sensory moments as well.
On we go…and best taken with a sip of something.
