The lift doors open. Someone ahead pulls a red suitcase towards the car park. An earthenware cup is still held in one hand, uncovered, the pale brown tea stirring with each step. Cars stand between the pillars. The suitcase goes on, and so does the tea.
“Hot tea”. There is still a way to go.
Hot tea
Rinpoche has quite definite views about what a cup of tea should come in. On a wooden table there is a sandwich, a smear of green sauce on a paper plate, and a paper cup of something dark. His verdict: “Serving coffee and tea in a paper cup should be considered criminal”.
No charge is brought against the sandwich. Or the paper plate.
The case against the paper cup.
A cup, however, is not compulsory.
He has his own way with pu-erh. A red vest, a bamboo blind, daylight through the narrow gaps. Leaves lie in a glass pot, with a little reddish-brown tea left around them. He lifts the pot, tips his head back, and brings the spout to his lips. Here, the cup is dispensed with altogether.
After a sip, he lowers the pot and turns his head. “Puer tea my way”. One pot has done the work of both pot and cup.
Puer tea my way
The old taste
A tea room offers comforts of its own. At Xiang Si Li She in Taipei, lampshades gather the light into warm pools over an old sofa, wooden tables and the calligraphy on the wall. There are cups and saucers beside a white porcelain teapot, and several glasses of water. He leans back in an armchair, arms folded, eyes closed.
The verses on the wall speak of hair bristling with rage, of a long cry sent up to the heavens. The man in the chair offers no response. His eyes stay closed. The teapot is within reach.
“Takes a maturity to have these kind of place.” That is his praise for the tea room. There are plenty of objects, plenty of lamps, yet he does not seem crowded by them. The chair has room for him; the table has room for several people's cups.
His mother’s former cook knows a thing or two about tea. In the spring of 2015, Rinpoche tells of returning to the place where he grew up and meeting him again. They had not seen one another for twenty-odd years.
The cook makes him tea.
“He made tea that tasted exactly the same as my mother had taught him.”
Twenty-odd years apart, and the taste is still familiar. The cook has not forgotten; neither has the man drinking his tea. Something his mother taught has come back to him through another person’s hands.
“Talk about maintaining discipline, and perfecting the art of making tea!” He can do without a cup when drinking his own pu-erh. His mother's way of making tea deserves this wholehearted praise.
The cook's beard has turned grey and white. He wears yellow beneath a dark red robe. Fine lines mark his face. Behind him, grass and trees climb the hillside.
His mother's former cook.
This cup
His New Year letter to friends is written in 2016, with a great deal of care. Be kind, he urges; be generous; do not hurry children into growing up. Even queue-jumping and loud voices get a mention.
With so much to attend to, he would not have people wear themselves out. Worldly endeavours never end; there is no need to finish everything. No one knows what the next hour will bring. The cup of tea at hand deserves its moment.
“If we are having a cup of tea right now, let us have it as if it is the last one in this life.”
There are rewards, too. Put one or more of these things into practice, and take a short nap, listen to some music, read a page or two of a good book. Having thought of so many things to do, he has also thought of ways to rest.
There is the comfort of sitting down to tea, and the convenience of taking it along. In the tea room, an armchair and white porcelain, cups with their saucers; in the car park, an earthenware cup stirring gently with the footsteps.
