Denis Vinogradov and I are back together in this unusually beautiful soundscape and teascape journey.
It was one of those odd moments when the air around you seems to buckle into a wave, when something from another dimension seems to force itself through. When Denis asked if I’d like to serve tea as we take a deep listen to one single album, I was intrigued immediately. But when he said that of all the albums in the world, he would choose Riceboy Sleeps, that’s when the air seemed to buckle.
Had I told him that it is our tea community’s #1 tea-listening album? Or is he just even more of a magician than I already thought?
I’ve been studying a meditative tea practise at the world’s only Zen & Tea centre, in Taiwan, since 2010. When I first started visiting the Global Tea Hut, I was amazed that they kept playing what was already one of my all-time favourite recordings. Through the years, Riceboy Sleeps in its entirety or via individual tracks has accompanied so many tea sessions around the world, it would be impossible to count. Global Tea Hut’s love for it spread recognition of it to tea lovers around the globe. This year, in a review of the 50 Greatest Tea Albums Of All Time, it came out as #1.
Why it marries so well to well to tea is in large part a mystery - as it should be. We can analyze all we want but it’s its mystery that really weaves its magic. The music has a way of seeping into the pores of your being, imperceptibly infiltrating the deepest reaches of your emotions. Light and easy on the surface, this music can get into the cracks of emotional defences and soften them to allow a complete flow. Tea does something very similar: on the surface, just a nice-tasting beverage, but it proves its power as a medicine for the heart.
Both this music and tea can affect us so much more when we offer the power of our attention and focus, which is what makes this event so unique. We so often do not give ourselves the time to listen deeply - to others, to the wind, to silence, to music… - and here for a few hours we come together to offer some of the world’s most beautiful music the gift of our attention, steeped in ancient jungle leaves which seem to have grown just for the occasion.