As a tea blog written in English, or some close facsimile, yet talking about tea in a way that so few English speakers understand. I have occasionally had to try and explain to others how I drink tea. In a certain sense, even with the cultural changes in East Asia I gather brewing tea in many concentrated steeps over the course of an hour or more is a disappearing art around the world. It is no shock that so many people give me odd looks like I am crazy when I talk about using 60ml teapots, and call them "two person teapots."
I oddly think I have realized it is not something you can explain away, you honestly need to feel the people out, and if they are interested enough actually invite them over for tea. I know they say a picture is worth a thousand words, I wonder how many words an experience is worth? It takes a lot of words, and in most cases a lot of seconds or minutes of nearly blank stares back to try and convince people that what you do is actually worth while. Often if the person is somewhat receptive, once you get them to sit down to that first sip, it suddenly makes sense.
So I guess this somewhat scatterbrained post, does not offer any guide on giving words to what we do, but rather, hope that if you could convince them to let you show them, you may just happen to expand some horizons. Tea is more than just a mildly flavored warm beverage (though I have somewhat often enjoyed that aspect of it as well), tea has a cultural and religious history behind it that surpasses any other beverage I can recall. So as the Zen koan says (loosely paraphrased) no matter who you are "Go in and have a cup of tea."
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