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I didn’t know anything about tea. Until last week.

During a walk I was captivated by a little teahouse I passed by and decided to stop in and look, even though I wouldn’t call myself a tea drinker. It is a very small place…only several tables, and it was full. While browsing their little shop, a table happened to open up and the owner asked if I wanted to stay, so…why not take a little rest in a charming little teahouse?

Not knowing what to order, I sort of picked one more or less at random. It arrived a few minutes later on a little tray, already perfectly brewed. Lifting the lid of the little brewing pot, I was greeted by a billowing aroma, and struck by the enormous size of beautiful, delicious tea leaves.

It was the best tea I had ever had.

The owner and tea master was kind and generous with the knowledge she had. I would later learn I was served tea in the method of a Gongfu tea ceremony, and the little brewing pot was known as a Gaiwan. Tea leaves, treated with respect, brewed carefully. And so, to make a longer story a bit shorter…

I finally learned about tea. And I would learn more, because when I got home, I of course researched more tea-related things. Mostly about the tea leaf itself. Did I know all teas, green, black, yellow, white, all came from the same plant, and that a wide majority of all the tea ever grown comes from a single species Camellia sinensis? I did not! Did I know that some bag of tea at the grocery store that you dunk it in hot water is filled with the dusty remnants of the tea manufacturing process? I did not!

How would I know? How would anyone know, if they were staring at a wall of teas at a supermarket, all colourfully graphically designed and brand-stamped to give you a feeling that you are buying something fresh, revitalizing or good for your health?

This is not a story about tea, or what good tea is, or what bad tea is, but about how disconnected and disempowered we are as consumers.

As we become more and more and more removed from the source of what we are purchasing as consumers, we are less and less and even less empowered with knowledge.

Over the coming weeks I hope to explore the different ways our extractive economy impacts our communities. Perhaps when we think of extraction we think of fossil carbon, or a mining company. But all aspects in our modern society are built around the concept of extraction, including the extraction of the knowledge base from the very communities we live in.

The day after my teahouse experience, I tried replicating the brewing process, as the tea master shared with me. I brewed the right temperature of water, and watched the pieces of tea leaf swell, unfolding into their enormous and beautiful shapes, filling the air with aromas that reminds of a summer cabin. After brewing and removing the leaves from the teapot, it is immediately evident that these leaves are not finished, they seem full of life, still. Indeed, I will use these leaves for a 2nd, perhaps 3rd, maybe even a 4th time, before they have been all brewed out…a far cry from a bag full of bitter dust designed to be thrown away.

Sustainability requires that we nurture something in such a way that it never enters a depleted state. To achieve that, we need to know the rest of the story, all of the steps, from beginning, to end. Knowledge, is empowering.

Graham

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