The Way of Tea as a Mental Health Tool
When talking about productivity tools you might have a todo-application in mind, maybe a browser extension. But having a tea-drinking session in the middle of our overwhelming busy days can serve as an excellent way of resetting our constantly working minds and give the day a big boost! Did you know that tea is the single most consumed beverage after water? Still, many people, especially in Western countries, just drink it occasionally or maybe in wintertime in case of mild sickness. Let’s understand this awesome drink and find some ideas on how we can utilize all its benefits and have the best possible experience! So allow me to bring you down the tea rabbit hole!
Camellia Sinensis
In this post we won’t focus on herbal and fruit teas, since they are not real teas by definition, they are tisanes. That out of the way, did you know real tea is the leaves of the tree called Camellia Sinensis? Green tea, black tea, oolong tea, all of them. Altitude, terroir, the season of picking (tea is an evergreen shrub!) and even soil contribute to the final taste of the tea. Unlike grapes, you can pick tea leaves when it’s just a bud, and you can have a different product made out of them! High-quality tea is traditionally hand-picked even today. There is no other way to pick only the proper leaves. There are small-leaf, big-leaf and bud teas. As a fun fact: Having 100g of high-quality Jinjunmei tea (金骏眉) you need around 10000 buds individually picked!
Oxidation
So where do the white, green, black and other “tea colors” are coming from? The answer is oxidation. Do you notice how the apple starts browning after you took a bite? Also the same thing with spinach. If you bruise spinach a little bit and let it rest it will brown. If you bruise it and quickly cook it, it will stay green though! Both apples and spinach do oxidize in this process and by applying heat, this process stops. The same applies to tea leaves. When they pick them, they bruise the leaves with a rolling process, basically giving the leaves a massage, then the manufacturers let it rest and cook the tea when it has reached the wanted oxidation level. This will give the tea a vastly different taste. Based on the oxidation level the tea became:
| Tea | Oxidation | Brew Temperature |
|---|---|---|
| White | 0% | 70°C-80°C |
| Green | 10%-30% | 70°C-80°C |
| Yellow | 40% | 80°C |
| Oolong | 50%-90% | 90°C |
| Black | 100% | 95°C |
| Pu-Erh | 100%+ | 100°C |
A few notes here: White tea is cooked right after picking so no oxidation. It should mimic the taste of freshly picked leaves. Yellow tea is quite rare and Pu-Erh tea is a tea that goes under controlled microbial fermentation.
As a key takeaway from this table, we can realize that higher oxidation allows higher temperatures as well. Anyway, what happens if we brew green tea with boiling-hot water? The thing is, tea can be a bit bitter. Oxidation sorta locks bitterness in the leaves, so it won’t dissolve into your actual water.
Pu-Erh or Pu’er is a big topic, but I keep things simple now. What you may want to know, there are 2 kinds of Pu-Erhrs. Sheng Pu’er and Shou Pu’er. Sheng is left for fermentation at room or cellar temperature slowly over years and decades, we also call it “raw” because of this. Shou on the other hand has some fast fermentation at the beginning at slightly higher temperatures and we often call it “ripe” due to this. For easier storage, they store these teas in pressed cakes, bricks or mushroom shapes, size varies, usually 100g, 200g or 357g. They used these cakes for trading back in the day!
Chinese Way of Drinking Tea
I consciously avoid calling this a ceremony, because these steps serve a purpose as you will see. First of all, high-quality good tea is not coming in teabags as you can see. It’s loose-leaf, so you may need a few extra items. The easiest way of consumption is the grandpa-style. This style requires only your mug. You put the loose tea leaves into the mug and pour the hot water on it. That’s it! I love this method for its minimalist simplicity. It obviously works best with bigger-leaf teas. Don’t worry, a decent quality tea will not leave any powder-like junk in the water so your mouth won’t be constantly full of leaf parts. This method is also perfect for casual office tea drinking. You will not stick out with all kinds of tea gear. After you finished, or have little water left, you can just pour the next dose of water on the leaves! These teas are infusible multiple times! The rough ratio for grandpa-style brewing is 1g leaves for .1L of water.
The other method is called gong-fu cha and it requires a few extra tools. Gong-fu 功夫 (yes, it’s the word where kung-fu originated) means effort/skill, chá 茶 means tea, and together means skillful tea brewing. In this method, the main difference is the proportions. You take a small container for the brewing, usually around 100-180ml little teapot or gaiwan (a Chinese ceramic) with way more leaves. Your glass is also around 30-60ml. We brew the tea for only a very brief period, but it is infusible multiple, often 10+ times this way! With this method we can taste the rich, complex flavor of the tea mindfully. Every infusion will have a slightly different taste. Otherwise, this spectrum of flavors would be infused in one mug of beverage. You can learn the skill, the gong-fu of how to do the perfect sessions if you practice this way of brewing! Some teas might like very short 10s infusions, others might like more time. You can experiment! The rough ratio for gong-fu brewing is around 3-5g to .1L.
Benefit from Tea Session
So we know what is tea, and how to brew it now learn why to drink it to gain all the awesome benefits! Tea contains caffeine and a substance called theanine. How you can imagine is coffee excites while tea stimulates. Theanine has great effects on general mental health. Consuming tea increases the brain’s alpha activity which leads to a better, more relaxed and more focused state of mind. There are a couple more components, which play a big role in our brain chemistry and it’s under heavy research (search GABA tea for more example). In my opinion greater relaxation, therefore less stress alone is probably the most important effect!
As we previously discussed, maintaining focus in the internet and smartphone age is not an easy task. Our awareness is always scattered, and our attention is constantly hijacked by technology. Tea with all its depth and culture can give us a new excuse to exit distraction and regain focus. Any time we feel we have no time for a break, 90% of the time that is the best time to have tea. Just excuse us for 10 minutes and brew a cup of tea. During this break, bring no technology with us, just be present at the moment. You can have a full-on meditative tea session. Try the following: When boiling water, be mindful during the whole process. Observe how the water boils and starts to have bigger and more vicious bubbles. As reaching the wanted temperature (soon we can tell the temperature by the size of the bubbles) we can stay there the whole time and try to let the problems go. When the water is ready we can proceed with our tea session. Preparing it can use all our senses and we can move our focus to the tea. This can fully become a mindfulness meditation. Instead of focusing on breathing you rather focus on the tea. In some sense, it’s easier and better feasible even in an office environment!
Keep relaxed, be focused, drink tea, and always learn!
