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Some time back I first talked to an anthropology phd student researching tea culture, Thiago Braga, first about online or Western tea culture issues, and later about his research related to China. Then we met with him and a Vietnamese tea vendor in an online meetup session, Steve of Viet Sun, (a few weeks prior at time of writing this draft, but that was months ago now).
Here I'll try to summarize a good bit of discussion across a lot of subject scope, since I think it would be interesting to others. A lot of what we covered related to me sorting out what an anthropology research perspective amounts to, which will get less focus here, or next to none. Since I've delayed posting this due to reviewing it further, then letting it hang, I'll mention how these ideas seem in looking back.
The parts about China are especially interesting, I suppose because we are still going through details of how Western uptake of tea culture themes go. The research and writing about China is much more developed, in a final paper form, related to what Thiago has produced. My impression and summary of that is still going to be partly wrong, because I could only do so much with specialized use of terms and arrangement of ideas, so this works better as a general impression than an accurate summary.
His take, or my take on it, is that in modern Chinese society people take up specialized forms of tea interest, kind of corresponding to "tea enthusiast" practices elsewhere, in part to connect them to interesting forms of traditional society. They take classes in "tea arts," to learn ceremonial brewing.
It's partly a way to add more meaning to their lives, which may have been reduced by the standard modernization themes: relocation to urban areas, emphasis on less traditional job and career advancement, consumerism / materialism tying to status concerns, modern hobby interests not necessarily being grounded in tradition (eg. online range). Playing video games is fine, or participating in Chinese equivalents to Facebook and Twitter, but there would be a natural appeal to connecting with older forms of traditional culture that hold meaning in different ways. Participating in traditional and ceremonial tea study and practice can support that.
At first I more or less rejected that this is a modern movement that seems valid or widespread. I have experienced three main contact points with Chinese culture, beyond visiting China three times, which I won't count as that: a few close family friends were Chinese families, I talk regularly with some Chinese producer and vendor contacts, and I did work projects that involved routine contact with Chinese companies and individuals (not so many, but the contact was significant). From all that it's my understanding that traditional tea interest isn't ubiquitous in China, but it remains common enough, at least related to just drinking tea, but that uptake of the more limited special ceremonial forms is quite rare. None of those family friends drank much tea, or had any special interest in the subject, but I suppose it matched the form and level of interest in coffee drinking in the US prior to Starbucks helping change that landscape slightly in the 90s. They bought what was in grocery stores or local markets, and weren't familiar with much for tea types, even in a local range, but they still drank tea.
Thiago's interpretation of a movement in modern Chinese tea culture
Thiago saw more of another side of modern tea culture, one I wasn't familiar with. "Marshal N," the tea blogger, has described tea practices in terms of people taking classes in tea background and tea preparation in Hong Kong in a Tea Addict's Journal, one of the absolute best and most influential Western blogs on the subject--it was like that. It went even further, because Thiago described chains of these sorts of places offering not just information and classes but also certificates, passing on an accreditation that someone has learned tea background and ceremonial practice competency. I guess this overlaps quite a bit with the "sommelier" oriented classes in "the West." I hadn't heard of this, beyond blog posts mentioning training classes that didn't really sound like that.
Next one might consider how this may or may not be considered mainstream. Probably not, if the idea is that uptake involves a significant percentage of the population. Then that drops out as a special concern, in this case, because from his research defining cultural aspects and forms is about the range of potential perspectives within modern cultural development, not only what is most common. It's no less valid for being somewhat rare, and probably no less interesting. Conclusions about what it means might shift a little related to level of uptake, in the end, but maybe not even that so much.
It was a little frustrating at first trying to place how he was framing this interest (/ movement, form of practice, expression, and self-definition) in terms of it being a valid historical movement, if it really was based on historical cultural practices. It just wasn't coming up as a concern. Then it turns out that maybe that doesn't matter, depending on how and why you are doing the cultural review. If ceremonial tea practices are presented as authentic, part of an old inherited tradition, then it's all a bit more genuine if it really is that, but a similar result occurs either way, related to the newer form of culture being influenced. Then eventually it can be seen as dropping out as a concern, whether it traces back to earlier forms or not. Surely some focus within anthropology study weights that kind of concern more than others, but it still makes sense to analyze the current forms, practices, ideas, and perspective separate from that accurate historical connection as an over-riding concern. Maybe brand new, ungrounded forms of cultural expression are even more interesting, for some reason.
Thiago's use of the concepts of ethics and logic threw me off a little in that writing, related to being exposed to very narrow forms of those ideas in the past, in studying philosophy. He actually referenced part of what I understood them to be, even tying aesthetic experience back to a Kantian framework in one section, but his use also clearly went beyond what was familiar. It's easy to see how ethics could easily be extended beyond purely moral framework scope, and logic could be extended beyond a narrow range of rational cognitive functional scope. It's just not as easy to follow that use implied within very formal academic paper presentation context.
Readers might be waiting for me to get back to basic themes; what does it all mean, if Chinese people try to redefine themselves in reference to older tea culture traditional experiential practice forms? I guess it means whatever they take it to mean. It's a little unsatisfying, but probably not as wrong as any other answer might be. It's like philosophy classes never even starting in on the meaning of life, or logic classes never venturing towards claims for or against people actually being rational. You just don't get that, the over-arching, final, context placement explanations.
From here I should let Thiago say a little (this just doesn't lead there; a review process didn't end in that), about whether I've misconstrued what he was getting at. Of course I have left out the specifics he did describe about what Chinese people are taking that traditional tea culture to be. It's the "cha dao" theme, the way of tea, with one other main term and description scope tying to one other broad practice range that I don't remember. It never became as clear as it might have, in his paper, because it was never mostly about that anyway, just as much about how it all maps over to modern practice, the forms. All that tea tradition background was treated at length, but the writing was more about how people seemed to be reacting to that base of ideas, not so much individually, but how sub-culture was being adjusted by the contact. He never used the term "sub-culture," I don't think; maybe there's a reason why that's not something an anthropologist would reference, perhaps too imprecise a term, or regarded as an incorrect framing.
Then what Thiago identified as that ceremonial, traditional take in terms of the ideas being discussed was mostly familiar, but partly not. Not as much sticks in my memory as usually might, because it's a review of the causes, impact, and effect of ideas and forms as much of as the ideas themselves, and I personally don't take all that traditional practice / historical stories range to mean all that much. I don't care for tea drinking as a ceremonial practice, or try to collect devices to connect tea experience to that range of aesthetic interest. What's left over is pretty much simple experience, and then a range of shared ideas about what that experience might mean that tend to not come up explicitly. Let's go there, and draw on an example, switching back over to how tea culture and forms of interest map over in US culture, or to Western culture in general.
Western tea culture
I co-founded a large tea group, International Tea Talk, and serve as the only active admin / moderator for that group, along with a Chinese vendor who isn't active. It works as a starting point to consider what it might mean for people to engage with an online group like that, to discuss background, forms of interest, types to explore, brewing practices, tea references, social experiences, and so on? It's really just about pursuing those directions. Then there must also be a degree of self-definition involved, as a "tea enthusiast." Or a vendor, more frequently in that group, since commercial interest and participation as a producer or vendor is more common in that particular group. That's part of tea culture, people making the products, and selling them, but there's a more natural central focus on the demand and final experience side.
That group had been about discussing tea forms and background, but now the Gong Fu Cha group on Facebook works as a much better example, or various Discord groups do, in a shared chat format. That's how it goes with online groups; what is popular or active changes. Eight years ago Tea Chat and Steepster were the two main places for such discussion, and now both are relatively completely inactive.
This leads to considering a parallel between Chinese people attempting to connect with an older form of their own culture, finding meaning in parts of their tradition that they didn't inherit directly from the influence of their parents and grandparents, or at least not in a complete form, and this foreign association. Westerners must be seeking contact with foreign Asian culture, to some extent, beyond just liking the drink. Or could it be mostly about only making a new beverage choice, and developing that food related interest form, exploring better tea?
This is especially interesting as a personal tangent, related to my own case, because technically I live within Asian culture, as a resident of Bangkok, and member of a Thai family. But very few Thais drink tea, or at least embrace what I consider to be "tea enthusiasm." A half dozen exceptions come to mind, but that number drops further when you remove everyone I know without commercial interests, that don't sell tea. One local guy I know loves tea but doesn't sell it, and even he offers informative class sessions that he charges for. So essentially every Thai I know, and almost every foreigner here into tea, takes up developed tea interest to earn income from it. Ok then! I suppose that's still a sub-culture form, it's just that the causal background shifts a little. I may be confusing the matter here, and lots of people do discuss tea online without attempting to sell it, but past a certain point of developing knowledge and interest there is a natural trend to seek a compensation return, an income from the interest.
Related to my own impression of these ideas, about examining forms of cultural input more in terms of what people are seeking from ideas and drawing from them as forms, versus the actual content, it led to an interesting new way to look at Western tea interest. Why is it happening, and just what is happening? Again not much is happening, in relation to uptake in terms of numbers of people participating, but some limited degree of cultural borrowing and development is still occurring.
I'm a part of that, not just in terms of experiencing it, but also as a cause, helping shape it. I don't mean that as a claim of importance, as if a tea blogger or online group founder is what it's all about, instead as clarifying that those are two of many contact points with this cultural form, or range of forms. Tea textbooks also would be, and tea classes, tea meetup groups, cafes, and so on. The ideas are transmitted through blogs and texts, but really the practices seem like a more central part, to me. At the very center of it all drinking an infusion of dried leaves play a main role, and that has to be a part of the contact, but it's hard to place the role the rest plays.
Later thoughts on personal interest forms in Western tea sub-culture
That was where the initial draft left off, but I feel it hasn't captured what I kept re-thinking about those themes over time. Why is it that some Westerners are very attracted to the idea and then practice of tea drinking? It's just the same central question: can that be reduced to the potential and later experience of the beverage experience itself, or is there more to it?
Again it seems to tie to an interest in Asian cultures. Then that part is strange, because even in China tea drinking isn't as widespread as one might expect, but outside of there, and Taiwan, Japan, and Vietnam tea drinking isn't common at all in Asia, in any form. If the idea is to connect with a perceived form of general or specific Asian culture maybe that doesn't matter, just as it doesn't matter whether Chinese people studying "tea arts" are really connecting with an authentic earlier tradition or not. There's a modern tradition to get in touch with, and the history doesn't necessarily matter, as much as commonly accepted interpretations and revised forms of that history.
Comparing that to forms of interest in tea, and groups of people who tend to share that interest, turns up a divide in approach points. For sure there are "progressive" minded individuals who attempt to pair tea interest with religious pursuit, getting into Buddhism and tea ceremony, for example. Global Tea Hut is an organization based around supporting that interest pairing. That's far from the most mainstream form of American tea enthusiast approach, to the extent there even is such a unified theme (and there's not). That doesn't necessarily matter though; it seems like the people open to tea experience might well be open to other aspects or facets of either that experience range or loosely connected range, themes like collecting teaware, ceremonial brewing practices, Asian religions, and martial arts.
I might mention here that I've been interested in Buddhism for many years myself. I was ordained as a Thai Buddhist monk at one point, and studied Buddhism and Taoism (and also Christianity) as religion and philosophy in two degree programs, just stopping short of getting a phD to support teaching. I don't necessarily connect that to tea experience, but I'm definitely also on that page.
The spread of tea interest connecting to Asian cultures isn't happening through the channels that you might imagine, for example that Chinese immigrants support local interest group formation, or hold ceremonial or simpler forms of tastings, coupled with selling tea. That happens, for sure, and it was a main earlier channel for introducing tea to "the West," or the US, but now it's on to other types of groups and proponents playing a role. Usually the driver is commercial, as it is here in Bangkok, with almost everyone promoting tea selling it, or at least selling tea oriented content or tasting event participation, or some forms of tours, and so on.
I suppose this is exactly what one would expect, that many Westerners are now selling tea. Blogs also promote tea themes, as this one does, but those tend to be temporary ventures into communicating shared interest, the kind of thing one might take up for a few years and let drop, whether the tea interest itself wanes or not. Instagram profiles show off what individuals experience, even when they don't sell it; that's an updated replacement for the earlier text blog form. There are tea clubs at some universities, but that kind of thing is a rare exception.
Maybe I should bring up one form that relates to how most Western tea vendors got their start in China: over and over the case of a white foreign man marrying a Chinese woman repeats. Touchy stuff, just introducing that context. I'm married to an Asian woman myself, just Thai instead. I suppose focus on Asian themes was reinforced quite a bit by that context, and that's partly why I've been writing about tea for nine years, although the Buddhism studies came before that. As I think through the number of foreign vendors I know in different places it's crazy how often that same form repeats. A few guys are married to Asians from outside of China, and one favorite tea vendor is a Western woman who married an Asian guy, but that form as a driver of introduction and then developed interest might have played more of a role than any other factor in tea industry development.
Back to a running theme in the first part here, maybe that doesn't matter at all, how the cultural mixing actually happened, since the final concern is that it did happen. Maybe if someone like Bruce Lee had been more interested in tea that would've rushed the process by a few decades. Looked at this way it's interesting how tea is adopted by other cultures, but the pathway and triggering steps aren't necessarily critical. Or that could seem very interesting and still not matter, with regards to the final form of uptake and expression.
I've had fascinating discussions about this with a main founder of the modern Russian tea tradition, Bronislav Vinogrodskiy, with some of that described here. He approached tea interest from a relatively academic standpoint, combined with researching Taoism, and then helped convey practices from both back to Russian culture, switching to an unusual "practical" role. That started in the early 1990s, surely no coincidence that was when the USSR ended, or maybe that was only a main turning point, with critical early steps before that. He was involved with developing a "tea club" theme that took off, leading to commercial development of supply chains and outlets there. That almost seems kind of backwards, right, developing the awareness and interest first, and then the sales foundation to support that?
His take is that conditions were right for that movement to develop then, that it wasn't anything novel he or others contributed that made the difference. There was an openness to Asian cultural input, and tea and religious / philosophical ideas and practices helped develop that. It's possible that he misunderstood the cause and effect sequences, but this still seems like a rare form of first hand insight, even if so. And it seems likely to be mostly correct, that conditions were right for a triggering introduction, and foreign culture interest led the beverage choice change. Russians had drank plenty of English style tea in the past, earlier on from India and Sri Lanka, later switching to production in Georgia (covered more here). But later ceremonial forms and other types of tea interest developed right then, which was all completely different.
Judging from slow, incremental development of tea interest in the US and Europe maybe the conditions aren't similar. Exposure and uptake of tea interest by any one individual needs to be more organic, developed from physically running across the conditions for tea experience, seeing it in a farmer's market and such. There is one successful Tik Tok channel about tea, and lots of other isolated online examples, so that must help as a secondary cause. But tea isn't "having a moment," and it seems like it won't, until causes and conditions shift slightly.
I've been considering for years how I might help give those a nudge myself, and next year a new form of that might be possible. Or maybe it will never happen until the right time somehow arises, the right cultural moment, as they experienced in Russia awhile back. Tea could have adjoined that hipster subculture interest in craft goods a decade or more back, but it seemed like coffee filled almost all of that role instead. I just wrote about discussing that subject with my brother, who feels that tea will never take up the same role in US culture that coffee already does.
As for next steps related to better identifying an anthropology oriented take on tea, I'm not sure. If I discuss this further with Thiago and he clarifies which parts are way off I'll pass on a clarification here. If his published work becomes publicly available I'll mention a link to that in a post.
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