The Spirit of Tea

This is not just a book about tea or its' history. The author treats tea as a sacrament which is sacred. Tea is not just a plant to be enjoyed with water, but a spirit-filled drink that refreshes the body as well as the soul.A must read!

What an incredible read. This book describes the experience of drinking tea. If I hadn't experienced this myself, I wouldn't have appreciated this book as much. It truly seeks the essence of the spirit of tea.

Like dance to a dancer, Mr. Murphy gives us a taste of how tea can be an act to express ourselves to each other.

Reading this slim little tome was like sipping a cup of soulful tea - I would take a sip of a chapter or even just a few pages, and then savor it for hours, letting its loveliness and deep wisdom and even humor sink into my soul. The author's stories are alternately funny and transcendent, and the story and world of tea is a fascinating and compelling one. The way he tells his stories has a certain poetic sensibility to it, making the reading a lyrical experience, soothing to the soul.Here's a sampling of some of the delights to be found:"Tea seeks to be rooted through us and thus assists us to ground. It is a natural desire of all plants, whose home is in the earth, to want to bring us there.""We let tea infuse in the cup and then we let the tea infuse in us. Our bodies are now the vessel. Like the trigram tui, the lake or the vessel, in the I Ching, only by virtue of its emptiness, its receptivity, can it receive any water at all. It is the same with a lot of spiritual practices. We "empty ourselves" first to become a "receptive vessel" for the guidance and counsel we seek. And so it is with tea. As we sit drinking our tea, savoring its taste, the calm reflective surface of the lake causes us to reflect, slow down, and withdraw from the world into ourselves to receive what we need.""Tea has a way of softening us, making us vulnerable and receptive. If we take the time and continue to sit quietly in our chairs, savoring the taste and the moment, we may remember not only where we mislaid our spectacles but also where we have mislaid our dreams.""Tea is not the answer, but it can be a way to the answer... The true tea master knows you do not need tea to access your own divinity. The way of tea is about cultivating certain virtues, skills, and noble attributes, all of the time, not just when we're having tea."Don't pass up this little gem!

Frank Murphy gives prose to the deepest understanding of human relationship with tea on an intensely spiritual level.

Excerpted from a published review on Tea Pages blog (teapages.blogspot.com)Frank Hadley Murphy's "The Spirit of Tea" changed the way I think of tea in my life.This book approaches tea from a completely different direction than most tea books. Instead of talking about how teas are grown and produced, Hadley Murphy discusses how tea helps us grow. Tea isn't just something we drink to pass the time. It should be something we meet with reverence and attention. We need to honor it and concentrate on how it affects our spirit.While there were moments in the book that challenged me, slightly heavier on mysticism than I am comfortable with, the vast majority of the book really spoke to me. The opening of the chapter "Everything I Need to Know Is in the Cup" was a perfect example:"I get so busy sometimes that I feel I am crowding myself out into the margins of my day. The ritual of tea returns me to the center of the page."What a fantastic visual image. I have come back to that thought frequently as I have prepared my tea over the past week.One of the most fascinating parts of the book for me was Hadley Murphy's discussion of the "Threshold Teas." These are six teas that he feels are important introductions to the various tea types. For each tea, he talks about what makes it unique - the flavor, the production, and, perhaps most importantly, the effect it has on our bodies and souls. Your experience with these teas (Silver Needle, Junshan Yinzhen, Dragon Well, Da Hong Pao oolong, Yunnan Gold, and Puerh) will be forever changed.His conversational tone and beautiful descriptions mark Hadley Murphy as a skilled story teller. At just over 100 pages, The Spirit of Tea is a quick read. I have no doubt, however, that you will read it over and over. We all have so much we could learn from this tea master.

De esos libros que llegan al alma. Muy profundo para los apasionados del té.