A great reason to NOT use tea bags…

Green Tea

By  Dale Ritterbusch

There is this tea

I have sometimes,

Pan Long Ying Hao,

so tightly curled

it looks like tiny roots

gnarled, a greenish-gray.

When it steeps, it opens

the way you woke this morning,

stretching, your hands behind

your head, back arched,

toes pointing, a smile steeped

in ceremony, a celebration,

the reaching of your arms.

Reprinted from Far From the Temple of Heaven, Black Moss Press, April 2006. Copyright © 2005 by Dale Ritterbusch.

I found this ode to love at poetryfoundation.org, and it’s the best reason I’ve ever heard of to only use loose tea.  But there are other great reasons as well, all relating to the quality and flavor of the end beverage.  Simply stated, tea makers tend to put torn or shredded teas in bags, where they know you won’t see them.  Tea – whether it unfolds as sensually as the one above or not – is generally better left whole and allowed to blossom or unfold in the water.

We’ve got some great sensual, curled teas at the Cup – including Jasmine Pearl, Budding Flower and a lovely new one, Bi Luo Chun (which also goes by the easier to pronounce name of Green Snail…)

We knew you’d want to know.  In case you’d like to have your own poetic moment:)

Time Travel - with Music

           

 

Amy Speace      

A baby boomer friend of mine, who grew up HATING her parents music (like all of her friends), once told me how utterly astonished she was when her very musical and now grown son grew up loving The Grateful Dead as much as she did.  How one of her best memories is when they went to a Dead concert – together.

            Much has been made of the differences between Millennials and Boomers.   And as any boomer who is suddenly plunged into the world of millennials - or vice versa - can attest, ‘it’s a different world from where we come from.’  Or is it?

            I just found ValsList.com, and concurrently discovered that Val Haller (who makes the list) also writes a weekly column for the NYTimes called Music Match.   In it, she matches tracks from her generation to that of her 20-something son’s and thus introduces both generations to more music to love.  Boomers: want to feel old and yet young again?  Click here and play the Amy Speace video.  Then dig out that Judy Collins LP you just couldn’t toss even though you’ve long since ditched ANYTHING that plays records.  Hold the cover, shut your eyes, and travel through time. 

Wabi-sabi.

Judy Collins

Need a reminder of all that's good?  Try this!

Is there someplace in the US you wish you could visit?  A favorite place you’d like to return to?  Ever wish you could just take a year and go see all the best parts of America? 

Well, if you can’t get yourself there anytime soon, you can still do more than just dream.  John Ellis and Laura Preston are traveling the country for a year in an Airstream trailer named ‘Loretta’.   (The truck’s named B.B.)  Posting on their blog as they go, the photographs are gallery-worthy and the posts are mini-adventures.

But the best part?  They’re asking all their followers to make recommendations about what to see, where to stop, eat, sleep, swim – you name it.  AND you can vote on the recommendations others have made as well.  Which made me feel part of a great journey in a way no other travel blog ever has.

So go ahead, take a minute, go to their blog and help make - and take - their trip.  I promise you’ll be smiling when you leave:)

Wabi-sabi!

Seeing Wabi-sabi

                             

            Ask just about any out-of-towner what comes to mind when they hear ‘Dallas’ - and - depending on their age – the images probably include the tv show, the JFK assassination, the Cowboys, the endless concrete of DFW airport and George W.  And all of the images would be accurate; they all are Dallas-rooted.  But wrap those thoughts in Texan mega-images and today’s political schisms, and you can understand why some people just dismiss the area and head for Austin or for distant mountains.  (Just like many Dallasites do during the long, long HOT summer.)

            We all look at everything with preconceived notions: we wouldn’t know we were looking at a cup if we hadn’t learned, at some point, that it was a cup.  But we often don’t realize all the cultural filters we use to “see.”  A broken cup in America is a devalued cup; the break ruins the cup.  But in Japan, with its long wabi-sabi tradition, observers look at the break differently – they believe that the imperfect cup now tells a richer, individual story.

            Back to Dallas.   Meet just one Dallas, cutting-edge artist.

            Shane Carruth has just released Upstream Color, his first film since his 2004 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning Primer, and by all accounts, he’s done it again.  Kenneth Turan (of the LA Times and NPR) said, ‘The one-man filmmaker extraordinaire has crafted an out-there yet undeniably gripping tale that's part romance, part sci-fi and utterly original.’  Read the reviews.  Go see it.  Rent or buy Primer.  Love it or hate it. 

            But regardless, think about giving Dallas – and everything else you see - a wabi-sabi thought.

The Way to Wabi-sabi

 

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese world view, originally derived from Buddhist teachings on the natural transience and inherent imperfection of all things.  It honors and even celebrates that imperfection, by finding the beauty in it.  Thus, a 400 year-old cracked and visibly repaired tea bowl is not only seen as having beauty, but even more beauty than a ‘perfectly’ formed new bowl, because the older one has its lifetime of stories to share.

We’re big on wabi-sabi here at The Cup.  And we think it’s a concept that more Americans would also appreciate and even ‘American-ize’.  The REAL people, with real lives, that crack their personal bowls.  We celebrate all those lives, and wonder if the American spirit isn’t drowning in too much perfection.  The one-dimensional bios.  The perfect bodies.  The perfect faces.  And all that the rest of us do to attain them ourselves. 

Which brings me to Julianne Moore and the 4/14/13 NYTimes Taste and Style Magazine, the latter an environment more generally known for its celebration of perfection.  But not this time.  Both her photographs and the accompanying article show how Moore is ‘pushing the limits’ of her age, appearance and her characters.  Kudos to both Ms. Moore and T’s editors for finding the beauty in imperfection. 

Don’t get me wrong – it’s still a pretty small crack in this traditional bastion of perfection.  But they just might be on their way …

Wabi-sabi.