I’ve been a tea drinker for as long as I can remember. My family has roots in the southern United States, so during the summer there was always a big jug of cold, sweet tea in the refrigerator for anyone who needed to cool off on an especially hot day.
I used to sit at the table; eating dinner and feeling like a grown-up because I was drinking tea and not fruit juice like my younger siblings. Beyond that, I entertained myself by guessing who had made that day’s tea by how syrupy it tasted.
My mom has a sweet tooth and there is only one word she has ever used to decide how much sugar should be poured into the jug: “More.” The result was that her style of tea left a slight film on my teeth. I’d sit at the table and run my tongue over my molars to taste every last ounce of sweetness.
On the other hand, my dad made tea the same way he made everything else: by calculating the cost and devising a way to save money. Sugar was expensive, so it had to be rationed in the same way that we had to turn off lights when leaving a room to save electricity. The minimal amount of sugar meant that my dad’s iced tea was minimally sweet. I’d have to let it sit in my mouth for a few moments, allowing the sparse sugar particles to settle on my tongue before swallowing.
Growing up, the iced tea in my house was always changing from one day to the next, but my love for it was always the same.
When I matriculated to college, I was introduced—or I should say re-introduced—to hot tea. Not only was this style of tea unrefrigerated, it was also unsweetened, or, as my girlfriend at the time liked to say, unadulterated.
Of course, I’d drank hot tea before, but I’d found it disgusting. Coincidentally, when you plan on drowning the tea with table sugar, its quality doesn’t very much matter. You just need something that will turn the water brown, then let the sweetener do the work.
So when, in my youthful ignorance, I drank cold, unsweetened tea, I quickly spit it out and dumped the cup into the sink. My mother laughed, my father laughed, and that was the end of that.
But things changed during my college years. I was introduced to loose-leaf teas and pour-over brewing methods. I learned that different teas must be steeped at different temperatures, and I judged them based on their color, control, and clarity.
Over time, I developed preferences. I learned that I like a stout, bitter tea in the morning, something like Earl Grey or English Breakfast. But my preferences shifted to flowery, less aggressive fare in the evening—think chamomile or elderberry.
My experience taught me that if it was prepared correctly, and I was careful in my selection, hot tea could be just as delicious as sweet tea. It was different, but it was also good.
Experience also taught me that even with the most careful preparation, hot days are not good for drinking hot tea. If it is 35 degrees celsius outside, my body revolts at the thought of consuming even the most carefully brewed hot beverage. So I return to the sweet tea of my youth and all is right with the world.
Thus, the tea itself is only a small part of the picture. It’s the preparation and the circumstances that determine if a brewed beverage is terrible or terribly delicious.
When the Buddha traveled across India 2,600 years ago, teaching the Dharma to anyone who wished to receive the teachings, he instructed his followers that suffering is caused by desire.
In the West, we often take this to mean that we shouldn’t have any desires, or that the path to enlightenment is to have just enough desire to keep us alive. We should eat just enough food to not starve. We should sleep just enough to not drop from exhaustion. We’re led to believe that desire is inherently bad, and, if we want to be good Buddhists, we should have as few desires as possible.
This understanding isn’t entirely wrong, but there is some important nuance that shouldn’t be missed.
It’s true that much of our suffering comes from having too many desires, many of which conflict with each other. We may want to stay up late partying with friends at the same time that we want to attend a Buddhist service early the next morning. We want to build a strong, healthy body at the same time that we want to eat junk food and lay on the couch all day.
Reducing our desires is one way to simplify our lives and make our day-to-day existence more peaceful.
That said, most of our suffering comes from having desires that don’t match our circumstances. In the same way, drinking hot tea on a hot day leads to bad results, wanting the wrong thing at the wrong time can be equally damaging.
There is nothing wrong with wearing shorts and flip-flops. But wearing them outside when there is half a meter of snow on the ground would be disastrous!
Similarly, there is nothing wrong with wanting to work a job and earn money to support ourselves. But if our drive to earn money causes us to ignore our personal health and damage family relationships, a normal desire becomes a harmful one.
In the same way, we must ensure that our choice of tea matches the time, place, and circumstances in which we find ourselves; we must examine each of our desires to ensure that they are appropriate for that moment.
Namu Amida Butsu
Related features from BDG
Inviting your Pain to Tea: A Buddhist Approach to Meeting Suffering
Buddha in a Teacup: Are You Angry?
Humility and Respect for the Buddha’s Word: Believing and Accepting the Teaching
Notice the Beauty in the Present Moment
