Chapter 5 · 5 / 5
The Spirit of Temomi-Tea
Why no step-by-step manual is given. Holding a vision of the tea you want to make and designing the whole yourself — that active stance is what makes hand-rolling a living practice.
The lessons are narrated in Japanese.
How to turn on English subtitles
- Start the video and click the CC button to switch captions on.
- Open Settings (the gear icon) → Subtitles/CC → Auto-translate.
- Choose English.
These are machine-translated from the Japanese captions, so expect some roughness — particularly around tea terminology. The text on this page is a proper translation, so read the two together.
So far we have covered the basic elements of hand-rolled tea making: the theory, the key points of operation, the tools you need and how to use your body. The groundwork.
You may already have noticed that nothing resembling a step-by-step manual has been given. We have kept to introducing the parts from which the maker assembles the whole.
We have said that hand-rolled tea making brings a deeper absorption than meditation, than everyday tea, than the tea ceremony. There is a large premise behind that: the person doing it has to be in an active state.
I want to make a tea like this. I want to get the tea I make to someone and have it please them. The maker holds a reasonably clear vision of that kind, designs the whole flow themselves, and combines the component elements well. That is the basic shape of hand-rolled tea making.
Without a goal, a person’s spirit and qi do not move. When qi stagnates, disharmony appears in body and mind, and the movements lose their precision.
Will and purpose move the qi; energy moves body and mind. This is a way of thinking often spoken of in the Eastern classics.
Staying relaxed matters, of course, but it is only the base. Only when an active stance — making your own new path and going down it — is laid on top of that does hand-rolled tea making become a living practice.
Hand-rolled tea is what a person with a high aim makes by facing the leaf with their whole being. The qi of the maker unquestionably lodges in it.
The maker of hand-rolled tea works with the receiver in mind, putting a feeling of care into the leaf. I want to deliver the rich flavour of this magnificent landscape without losing any of it. I want them to feel as though they were breathing the air of the place. Wishes as concrete as that go into each single movement.
The qi of the maker, and care for the receiver. Because these two are laid together into a single leaf, each hand-rolled tea becomes a work of art, unrepeatable, reflecting the world of the person who made it.
Hand-rolled tea making within Tea Gong is, one might say, the composing of a message and its delivery to a receiver. On top of a language system with its established grammar and vocabulary, the maker assembles a message, loads it onto the medium of the leaf, and sends it. That is the work.
What message to put in may not come to you immediately. When it does not, try imagining the future story of you and the receiver. What connects a future desirable to both of you with the present is the leaf, and the message placed in it.
Compared with a message written as plain information, a message in leaf reaches the receiver through the five senses and through qi, which makes it a very powerful tool. Your hand-rolled tea has the power to open up a future.
This is the ground on which Tea Gong Academy places hand-rolled tea as its most effective tool.
Learn hand-rolled tea making, master it, and make a better future with it. We look forward to the day when a cup born of your hands lights someone else’s way ahead.