Tea & Relational Culture: What’s Tea Got to Do With It?

One of the things we hear over and over again from people in the tea world is how so many great relationships have been created and nurtured through tea. But what is it in tea culture that’s so good at bringing us together? 

In this week’s episode we get philosophical about tea and relationships with Benjamin Olshin and Alex Schein,  two men whose own friendship was forged over tea and who have helped build community through tea in their professional and personal lives. Ben, a writer, teacher and consultant, teaches philosophy (among other things) at the University of the Arts, and has co-owned a Taiwanese-inspired teahouse in Philadelphia. Alex, a media producer, singer and songwriter, has run two teahouses in the U.S. and has produced and directed a documentary about Dobra Tea. Together we talk about why tea is not just a beverage but an experience, a practice, a way of being, a way of relating with each other and with the universe. 

You can watch Alex’s film, “Dobra Tea: The Good Tearoom” at http://www.goodtearoom.com. More information about Alex’s work is at skyhuntermedia.com, makingsensefilm.com and alexschein.com. 

You can find Ben’s books on Amazon.com under Benjamin B. Olshin.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.   

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The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

The episode photo “Tea is Served” (http://tinyurl.com/nrt7f6j) by ~Mers (https://www.flickr.com/people/barnkim/) is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/).