Prepare Your Tea

Mindfully prepare your tea.

Don’t multitask. Immerse yourself into the experience.

You can use a mug, a teacup, a bowl–whatever you enjoy.

Pro-tip: Don’t overfill your cup or bowl so you feel comfortable holding it without fear of spilling.

When your cup is a comfortable temperature, hold it with two hands.

Then, recite the gatha/practice poem as you coordinate it with your breath.

Tea Practice Poem

This cup of tea in my two hands,

mindfulness held perfectly.

My mind and body dwell

in the very here and now.

Breath in while reciting (out loud or silently) the first and third verses.

Breathe out while reciting the second and fourth verses.

Then, in subsequent breaths, you can shorten the verses:

In: tea

Out: mindfulness

In: mind and body

Out: here and now

If you try this tea practice poem with mindful tea, I’d love to know how it goes! There are many ways to practice mindful tea, of course. Building mindfulness or meditation into your tea practice–especially if you drink tea daily or weekly–can be a convenient “trigger” or “cue.” When I prepare my tea, I am mindful. When I drink my tea, I do so meditatively, etc.

I find mindfully preparing and meditatively drinking tea such a beautiful and meaningful part of my day. Tea is so lovely and friendly–it’s a wonderful meditation partner.

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What’s Mindful Tea

Starting with a definition, or understanding, of mindful tea is a great way to begin.

What’s Mindful Tea?

Slowing Down: Countercultural Inspo

So many aspects of American culture work against cultivating rest and presence. Awareness and intentional resistance are explored in these posts.

Rejecting a Culture of Scarcity

Suggestions for Mindful Tea

There are so many ways to use tea to cultivate stillness, presence, and rest. These posts can help give you ideas to start.

Ideas to Invite Stillness into Your Life

Five-Minute Tea Bubble Meditation

Meditation Incorporating Tea Imagery

Video

Bonus Suggestions for Mindful Tea

1. Focus on PREPARING your tea. Don’t listen to music, or a podcast, or multitask. Give full attention to all the steps from filling your kettle until pouring your tea. Use all of your senses to immerse into the preparation.

2. Focus on DRINKING your tea. Notice the appearance of the tea, the feel of your cup, the sound of the pour, etc. Don’t do anything except be with and enjoy your tea.

3. Focus on PREPARING and DRINKING your tea. (See 1 & 2, above.)

4. Another suggestion for mindful tea: Hold your mug or teacup and LOOK OUT A WINDOW. Enjoy what you see outside between savoring your sips of tea.

5. Turn on a meditative or favorite piece of MUSIC. Sit comfortably and drink your tea while listening to the music.

6–Finally, take your tea OUTSIDE. Sit on your front steps with your tea. Or pack a thermos and cup and go to your favorite local park.

Connect with Me and Mindful Tea

I hope you find these resources and suggestions for mindful tea helpful, Tea Friend! We could all use a little more calm…and tea…in our lives.

If you subscribe to my monthly newsletter for tea lovers, Tea Infusiast News, you’ll find more tea content–including information about my regular Tea Mindful Together online tea meditations. These events are usually free to all subscribers.

You can learn more about me here, including my training in tea and meditation.

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Tea Inspiration List

• Have tea with someone you love.
• Have tea with a group of friends.
• Try a tea that is new to you.
• Savor your favorite tea.
• Go on a “tea walk” and drink tea outdoors. (Here are some tea walk tips.)
• Use your fanciest teaware.
• Use you coziest, easiest teaware.
• Arrange your tea space to make it visually appealing.
• Try mindful tea or a tea meditation. (Here’s a winter playlist I made to accompany mindful or meditative tea time.)
• Attend a tea festival, take a tea class, or visit a teahouse. Or, do all three!
• Exchange tea with someone you know and trust.
• Support a local tea vendor, tea shop, or teahouse.
• Check out a tea blog. (Congratulations, you’ve already accomplished this one! )

Are any of these ideas from the tea inspiration list new to you–or already favorites? I’d love to know!

If you are interested in finding out about online and in-person tea events, tea meditations, notice of new blog posts, giveaways, and more, consider subscribing to Tea Infusiast News. It’s my monthly newsletter for tea lovers.

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Join me at my October online workshop, Tea with Your Inner Critic.

Are you tired of battling or feeling belittled by your “inner critic?” I was!

For some time, I’ve worked to pay attention to that critical voice I often hear inside my head–the voice that critiques, questions, and makes me feel or act small. What’s more, I’ve managed to befriend my inner critic.

Doing this work has been meaningful and rewarding. Now, drawing on my experience as a tea teacher and a meditation teacher, I’m excited to serve as a guide and help others begin to work with their inner critic, too.

Tea with Your Inner Critic

I’ve created an online workshop. Our goal is to help recognize, better understand, and begin to befriend our inner critic.

I will be inviting participants to join in a:

• tea ritual

• guided meditations

• journaling prompts

• and more

Live Online Workshop Details

Date: Sunday, October 5, 2025

Time: 2:00 – 3:45 pm ET

Price: $35 (regular registration rate); $30 (early bird registration rate)

I’ve designed Tea with Your Inner Critic to be a live, online experience. It will not be recorded.

Although I cannot share a recording of the live event, I will share other workshop resources afterwards.

Registration and Payment

$35: Regular Registration Rate

For people who sign up between September 9 – October 4, 2025.

Questions?

If you are interested in my background, I invite you to check out my page, “About Traci” or read about me on the Steap’d blog.

If you have any questions about this workshop, you are welcome to email me at teainfusiast@okso.org.

You can see my other upcoming offerings here.

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I offer sliding-scale pricing to make this experience more financially accessible.

Details about the Sunday Serenity Series

What is the Sunday Serenity Series?

This won’t be your standard “plan-your-work” series. We’ll tap into how we want to FEEL each week. I’ll also invite participants to plan nourishing activities—for example, tea sessions or time for a beloved hobby.

I’ve lived the life of overwhelm and tried so many different approaches to scheduling my week. I’ve written about that journey here, in “My Week Ran Me.” So, I’m excited to share my insight and offer a space in community where participants can ask new questions, find new insights, and make their own plan.

When does this series meet?

Dates: We meet online every Sunday in September 2025.

The meeting dates include: September 7, 14, 21, and 28th.

Time: 8:00-9:00pm ET

(That’s starting at 8pm ET, 7pm CT, 6pm MT, 5pm PT.)

Let’s defeat the “Sunday Scaries” together! 

What’s the Price and How Do I Register?

To sign up for the Sunday Serenity Series, please choose the pricing that applies to you, below. All prices are in United States currency (USD).

IMPORTANT note about the email connected to your payment method.

• If you pay using a name and/or email that you didn’t use for your newsletter subscription OR there is a different email where you’d like to receive correspondence about this event, kindly email me after you register. teainfusiast@okso.org

Rate for tea-friends experiencing tight finances: $34 for all four sessions

Suggested rate for the Sunday Serenity Series: $48 for all four sessions

Rate for tea friends in a position to help support the reduced-rate price: $58 for all four sessions

Questions?

To learn more about me, you can read “About Traci.”

For questions about this event, kindly use the “leave a comment” function on this post or email Traci. teainfusiast@okso.org

Hope you join us for the Sunday Serenity Series!

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In April 2025, I finished an online Masterclass in Interactive Guided Meditation led by Jack Kornfield. Initially, I was disappointed. I misunderstood the nature of the “cohort” system for this course. Despite that, I was fascinated and, at times, moved by the new tools and the deeper dives into some of the techniques I learned.

Overview of the Meditation Course

The course was divided into four long sessions, about two hours each. Since it is online, you can take it at your own pace, stop to take notes, etc.

The class focused on:

• working with symbolic images and language (keys, walking sticks, healing palaces, etc.),
• helping folks visualize or “know” the messages they were receiving,
• personalizing the meditation based on what the person you are guiding shares,
• and working with meditations exploring a past life.

The course’s content really called to me. It provided a lot to think about and be inspired by.

My Misunderstanding

I mistakenly thought, when I read about the “see one, do one, teach one” approach and that there was a cohort, that the course would pair us with someone to practice with. That wasn’t the case. We watched Jack lead these experiences on the video. We also heard the feedback of the meditation teachers who were attending live when this series was recorded. I was disappointed not to have someone to practice with.

Some Initial Take-Aways

Despite the initial disappointment about the experience, I learned a lot from seeing Jack Kornfield lead these sessions on interactive guided meditation. I enjoyed how he talked through how he led the trainings, too. It was also very helpful to hear folks share their experiences being led or leading the guided meditations.

I have been working these past few years trying to hear and trust my intuition. It has taken time since I’ve spend decades learning how to be rational, linear, methodical, and philosophical. There are some great advantages to the latter, and I’m thankful I have those skills. But, there are other way of deep knowing.

I’ve found that working with symbolic images or guided imagery can unlock deeper knowing and more bravery to explore this side of understanding. Throughout the class, when Jack said “You can know,” I felt like he was directly reassuring me along this path.

My Future with Interactive Guided Meditation

I’m definitely inspired to work more with symbolic language and creating meditation prompts that allow people to reach into their own psyches or to see what bubbles up from their intuition. I started that work before, so this feels like a nice extension of it.

As for the smaller, one-on-one interactive guided meditations, I need to practice and explore this way of leading meditations before I have any thoughts of possibly offering such a thing. As a teacher in Higher Ed long before I became a meditation teacher, the idea of differentiation and customization is something I’ve long worked with. I’m excited to learn how to transfer these skills into my meditation offerings in such a personalized way.

The meditations and observations motivated lots of notes and thinking. I’m looking forward to what these experience inspire in me moving forward. I’m glad I took the course!

Other Meditation Teacher Trainings

I’ve written about some of my previous meditation teacher trainings on the blog. If you’re interested, you can read more here.

If your interested in learning more about the class described in this post, you can find it on Jack Kornfield’s website at Masterclass on Interactive Guided Meditation.

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Background to the Monastery Visit

Although it was my first time visiting a Buddhist monastery, it wasn’t my first time interacting with monastics from Blue Cliff. As I have previously shared on the blog, Sisters and Brothers from Blue Cliff came to my university and ran a two-day retreat in the fall of 2025. It was amazing!

The director of my university’s mindfulness center–Michael, a wonderful human being–organized the trip for folks at my university.

I traveled up there with a group of students, other faculty members, and staff. The bus ride up and back was very social–a lovely way to travel and bond as a group.

Structure of the Days

This visit to the Buddhist monastery was such a gift. The structure, practices, and beautiful energy nourished me. The typical schedule shared on the Blue Cliff website, shown below, is the one I participated in.

05:00 am – wake up
06:00  am – sitting meditation
07:00  am – exercise (stick exercise or personal practice)
08:00  am – breakfast
09:30  am – Dharma talk or working meditation
11:30  am – walking meditation
12:30  pm – lunch
03:00  pm – working meditation or activity
05:00 pm – sitting meditation & chanting
06:00  pm – dinner
07:30  pm – activity or personal practice time
09:30  pm – noble silence

I loved all of it. I particularly appreciated that all of this community and supportive structure took place in the natural beauty of the Catskills area.

Noble Silence at the Monastery

I’ll pause to mention the practice of noble silence. This practice particularly resonated with me. It involved not talking from 9:30 pm until after breakfast the next day. I’ve done mindful eating with others in noble silence before, but never on a scale like during my first visit to this Buddhist monastery. We were not talking while dorming, walking, meditating, and eating with others.

Noble silence was incredibly powerful. It had more effect on me than I could have imagined. Practicing and being together without talking brought a kind of peace and a heighted a sense of unity of purpose. In effect, it meant we weren’t multitasking–not ever–during this time. It’s was a powerful way to touch the present moment more deeply.

Tea Memories from Blue Cliff

I have some special tea memories from my visit to the Buddhist monastery.

One morning, I took my steaming cup of tea outside to a bench protected from the elements. I had been in noble silence since the night before and was feeling very relaxed and tender-hearted after the morning meditation. The weather was misty and it was raining lightly. Fog veiled the surrounding woods. I watched the nearby birds and drank my tea in companionable silence next to another visitor also drinking tea. I was such a beautiful moment.

Another highlight of the trip was leading a tea meditation in the Big Hall for our group before we had our first dharma share. The intimacy of our small circle of chairs and meditation cushions in the huge hall was striking. It also felt great to serve the lovely group I traveled with. I love Thich Nhat Hanh’s gatha on drinking tea, so I used that, preceded by some other gathas I added on the fly, realizing our tea cups weren’t cool enough to hold yet.

Since the Visit to the Monastery

Since returning from Blue Cliff Monastery, I have being practicing longer sitting meditations. I’ve also started using the mindfulness bells on the Plum Village app. I was inspired to do this because I absolutely loved the mindfulness bells at the monastery–the quarter hour reminder to stop and reengage with your body, breath, and spirit. I’ve also been practicing mindful eating more often since returning.

It’s not a contest to practice or do more. I want to underscore that. This is what I feel called to do and find very supportive right now.

My phone was put away most of my visit to the Buddhist monastery. Otherwise, I would be able to share more photos–including the morning mist in the woods, the delightful mossy paths by the creeks, and the beautiful folks that I traveled with and the monastics who welcomed us with such a generous spirit. Those photos are only in my heart.

The post My First Visit to a Buddhist Monastery appeared first on Tea Infusiast.

It uses the bubbles from pouring certain teas–NOT bubble tea–as the focal point of the meditation.

Does a particular tea that you drink tend to make more bubbles when poured? If so, that’s a great tea to choose.

Examples could include chai, Darjeeling, etc.

Preparing for the Meditation

Make some tea but don’t pour it into your mug yet.

Find a comfortable place where you can pour your tea into a mug and then sit and watch it.

The Tea-Bubble Meditation

Mindfully pour the tea into your mug. Raise the pouring vessel high enough to form a lot of bubbles but not make a mess.

Sit in front of the tea and watch the bubbles disappear. All of them.

Focus on staying with this tea-bubble meditation.

As the tea releases its bubbles, release your thoughts. Allow them to dissipate without grasping or following them.

If it feels helpful, say or think the word “release” when you notice yourself following any thought. Bring your attention gently back to the tea and/or your breath.

When done, thank yourself for taking about five-minutes for a tea-bubble meditation.

If you have more time to practice: enjoy mindfully sipping your tea without doing anything else. That means no audiobook, no scrolling, no reading the news, etc. As Thich Nhat Hanh famously says just “drink your tea.” It can be very soothing.

Ways to Connect

Interested in learning more about mindful tea? Check out my post “What’s Mindful Tea?”

If you are interested in tea and/or mindfulness? You might enjoy subscribing to my monthly newsletter for tea lovers, Tea Infusiast News.

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Imagine carving out time to enjoy a peaceful, mindful tea session. You spend a few moments using a practice to ground yourself. Then, you mindfully drink your tea and take time to journal. Maybe there is even music playing. At the end, you notice that you feel more at ease and peaceful.

I designed this Spring Rest Kit for Tea Lovers to help you have experiences like this!

Rest Kits are available now. And–this is NEW–limited quantities of eco-friendly physical decks are available as well!

Spring Rest Kit Overview

The Spring Rest Kit for Tea Lovers centers on spring themes (and metaphors) of new growth and mixed weather. It provides:

• 4 grounding practices, 4 mindful tea suggestions, 4 journal prompts
• sound experiences (a curated mindfulness playlist shared via YouTube and Spotify)
• the opportunity to practice at a time and place that works best for you
• a password-protected webpage to access resources

The practices can be enjoyed many times.

Optional: Add Physical Cards!

You can opt to purchase the online version of the Spring Rest Kit for Tea Lovers only or, while supplies last, add a physical deck. The deck includes a card for each journal prompt, grounding practice, and mindful tea suggestion. (Note: Due to shipping costs, I regret that I can only ship decks to addresses in the USA.)

The cards are printed on seed-infused paper. They are rustic, with gently torn edges. After you are done enjoying the cards, you can compost or plant the seed-infused paper. (You’ll keep access to the online kit for as long as I have my website.)

The kit’s paper was handmade in Nepal using eco-friendly techniques and infused with seeds. According to the paper seller:

Seeds include Petunia (Annual), Primrose (Perennial), Catchfly (Biennial/Annual), Maiden Pinks (perennial) Beardtongue (Perennial), Poppy (Annual), Chamomile (Perennial)

The plants tolerate partial shade and need 4 hours a day of direct sunlight. Will grow to about 3′.

Note: I haven’t been able to test growing the seeds. Many factors could affect success. So, I can’t guarantee that the seeds will grow. But, the kit will share the advice for planting the seed paper.

Choose Your Spring Kit!

Cost for the Spring Rest Kit for Tea Lovers are in USD. The online kit is available world wide.

*************************************************

Online kit only–$22

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Online kit plus eco-friendly deck–$38 and includes free shipping

(available to ship in USA while supplies last)

Rest Kit Testimonials

Still not sure? Here are some comments from tea lovers who used previous Tea Infusiast rest kits.

• “It was so relaxing and enjoyable!”
• “Thank for your time and effort for this Kit and communiTEA!”
• “It was so great, thanks!!”
• “It was a great way to rest at the beginning of the day, to pause and chill.”

Let’s rest and connect with and through tea this spring. Interested in reading more about tea and rest, check out my Tips for Restful Tea Time.

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In my regular meditation practice, I meditate in all kinds of spaces–my living room, a doctor’s office, in a meditation center, and in my car. The list goes on.

One of my favorite places to meditate when I am not practicing with others is at my kitchen table in the morning with my tea things. Taking a few minutes to set up this space is a great enhancer of the experience.

The sunlight streams through my window, making me feel like a contented cat that has found her sunbeam. There’s such a simple yet elegant beauty when I surround myself with tea, flowers, and happiness. The way these things engage my senses really helps me focus on where I am.

Although it’s not necessary to have a special setup to meditate–indeed, I often do not–I admit it can be easier for me to drop into the present moment when I have arranged a few things that remind me to enjoy it.

For me, the meditation set up can be as simple as:

• sitting by a sunny window (sunshine!)
• bringing some of my plants or flowers nearby (flowers!)
• setting up my tea and teaware with intention (tea!)

I sometimes add candles and my tea pets, too.

As I sat by my window this morning, getting ready to practice, I immediately though of Thich Nhat Hanh’s verses:

Happiness is here and now
I have dropped my worries
Nowhere to go, nothing to do
No longer in a hurry.

Happiness is here and now
I have dropped my worries
Somewhere to go, something to do
But I don’t need to hurry.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Tea, flowers, and happiness have a beautiful synergy for me. They remind me that the present moment is a beautiful moment. All I have to do is be still and notice.

If you ever feel like you are struggling to get into your practice, you might think about what things you already have that you could arrange near your meditation space.

I’d love to hear if you already have something that works for you or you tried something after reading this post.

If you are interested in more posts about tea and flowers, check out “Using Tea to Learn Flowers.”

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