Water is the “Mother of Tea.” It supports and nourishes the essence of tea, as it also does for all life. Nothing improves the quality of tea more than changing where you get water and how you store it. After years of hiking into the mountains to get spring water, we’ve noticed that besides the obvious ways in which the water has transformed our physical lives and spiritual journey through tea, the trips themselves have also had a huge impact on our lives.
Try storing your water in an urn, and give it prayers of light and gratitude before drinking. You can experiment with crystals that have been put out in the sun, or full moon and see what effect they have on the water. Alternatively, make your morning Tea and then leave a glass jar of the same water out overnight under the full moon. The next day brew the same Tea again. You will be amazed at the difference. And recognizing that the moon gets into our water, into us, is a part of awakening the harmony to Nature that is our healing.
People have always utilized prayer-filled water in healing, at churches or temples, in blessings and other holy rites. Water is the essence of life, even deeper and more elemental than plants. More than 90% of a bowl of Tea is water, so it is huge force in the healing medicine of Tea and can’t be ignored. As it makes up the vast majority of our bodies, an attention to it is a healing of us individually and globally. The sickness of the fresh water on this planet is a testament to our sickness, and is an omen from Mother Earth that we are in danger and need medicine.
VOICES FROM THE HUT: Water for Tea by Nick Hudis, May 2014. Global Tea Hut has generously granted permission to T Ching to publish past articles from their publication each week. These appear on Wednesdays.
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When I think about our culture today, where water is often drank from plastic containers, leaching dangerous chemicals into our bodies, I’m afraid for all of us. You talk of getting water from a mountain stream. We have gotten so far removed from that, I suspect most people have never even drank water from a stream, or at least not in the last decade or two. I will try your experiment, using my filtered tap water and leaving it in a glass jar under a full moon. I am intrigued. Thanks for a reminder of the importance of the precious water that we drink.