From my experience with tea, the state of being you approach it with will have the biggest effect on the experience. Personally, I'm not looking for anything except good taste and aroma from tea. No tea is going to change who you are or bring you closer to something you think you need to be or have. Fetish drinking is like any other mystical pursuit. Another form of entertainment. Tea drunk, smoking dope, heavy metal, all have effects on the body. I have to laugh at the seriousness of Chadao and those who think they are practicing it, somehow. Drink up!
And followed by OBE?heatwaves wrote:You can also feel Cha Qi when the just the right amount of pesticide is added to the tea.
Well, I would say, just because the majority of people never experience OBE doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There must be some scientific reason behind cha qi, but I don't get bothered as long as it adds to the enjoyment of drinking tea.
I prefer MarshalN direct approache to explain it.
@Janine wrote:Definitely the calming is part of my experience. Puerh is also a traditional med. remedy for headache.
Others here know far more about the history of this tradition than I do, but it is my understanding that the old trees are valued for the depth of their roots and so what they absorb from the environment -- all adding to the cha qi. Wildness of the trees add yet more due to their place in nature. But there is no substitute for the experience of the tea. (You know, speaking of old and wild trees, this seems to be a corollary to our discussion about the oils in the tea)
(hi again betta)
Hi Janine, any new finding about specific teas having the most oil?
Because we interpret everything based on our background (the past) and what we've accumulated, people will explain things in their own fashion and give various meanings to it. Can qi be separated out from everything else?MarshalN wrote:I think you can roughly define it in two ways
1) This is the more common one: What the vendor wants you to think his/her tea has, so s/he can sell you more tea at a higher price
2) The feeling of an energy from the tea, not to be confused with caffeine rush.
Jun 30th, '09, 11:16
Vendor Member
Posts: 1990
Joined: Apr 4th, '06, 15:07
Location: NYC
Contact:
TIM
I hope you are joking Tead Off. To make a joke out of something people practice and dedicate their life to is very off. Because it's not in your head, doesn't mean its not there. Specially around us tea heads.Tead Off wrote:....I have to laugh at the seriousness of Chadao and those who think they are practicing it, somehow. Drink up!
Hi betta! Well, my info about oils was better coming from you, who's a pro in terms of research in this field. But one thing that I can say is that I feel tea is extraordinarily complex at this stage. I have really gotten into black teas quite a bit this year - which is something completely new to me. But just as one values a deep rich large-leaved puerh for its complexity and depth (and those oils) I think I find that black teas from similar areas like Yunnan possess similar qualities in the terms in which we are discussing: a complex, rich and deep flavor, lots of mouth feel, a depth to the complexity of flavors. I have also recently tasted a Taiwan black tea (a Ruby Black) that did not have the traditional keemun-type richness I look for but had a symphony of flavors I couldn't identify - they also changed and grew in different aspects in ways that totally surprised me. I would guess a great deal of this is related to the same aspects that produce the oils we discussed in puerh & oolongs... but since I don't do scientific testing it's still a guess - and you would be much better diagnosing than I. (Sorry for the long answer)betta wrote:
Hi Janine, any new finding about specific teas having the most oil?
But I do think it's linked to the discussion of cha qi - at least there is a correlation.
I agree. As for our perceptions being colored by the past - we're not stagnant creatures. My background has nothing to do with the things I've learned about teas. And I felt the cha qi BEFORE I had any explanation for it. I kept telling my tea servers -- puerh must have psychotropic effects! It was years before I discovered through drinking with others who encouraged me to explore this (thank you TIM! *bows deeply*) that what I'd been feeling or sensing was basically classic effects of cha qi. All of which came as a surprise, not from my past. Life would be stagnant indeed if all we had was the past - I see things as a more dynamic process than that.TIM wrote:To make a joke out of something people practice and dedicate their life to is very off.
We all need to check ourselves out sometime. Right, Tim? I find a lot of humor observing all kinds of things including religious practicioners and tea drinkers.TIM wrote:I hope you are joking Tead Off. To make a joke out of something people practice and dedicate their life to is very off. Because it's not in your head, doesn't mean its not there. Specially around us tea heads.Tead Off wrote:....I have to laugh at the seriousness of Chadao and those who think they are practicing it, somehow. Drink up!
Sometimes with an open mind, we learn new things through which we can interpret. The only thing that's stagnant - or perhaps moving backwards in the stream - is the mind that thinks it already knows everything and need not stay at least open to hearing something that might prove useful. A philosophical discussion perhaps is what we're having, which is okay. I still find it good reason not to ridicule something that's of obvious value to many people and held dearly in cultural tradition of one sort or another
There may be all sorts of theories and explanations for this that people come up with regarding cha qi. But in China there is something that has been studied and debated on and practiced for centuries already, and I find its information valuable and affirming to my own experiences which just seemed very strange to me. And it's linked to other systems (like the practice of acupuncture, Chinese medicine) that have been found very useful in the West as well. My doctor, for example, is a very highly regarded Western traditionally-trained and oriented oncologist - and he's just finished a degree in Chinese medicine and acupuncture. One must treat with respect traditions that deserve that respect, whether they are our own or not. We might just learn something. If not, why ridicule anyway? What one does not experience need not be a subject for contempt or ridicule.
In this case, to put it in the terms you have, there may be a piece of the mechanism involved that we're learning about through this practice.
There may be all sorts of theories and explanations for this that people come up with regarding cha qi. But in China there is something that has been studied and debated on and practiced for centuries already, and I find its information valuable and affirming to my own experiences which just seemed very strange to me. And it's linked to other systems (like the practice of acupuncture, Chinese medicine) that have been found very useful in the West as well. My doctor, for example, is a very highly regarded Western traditionally-trained and oriented oncologist - and he's just finished a degree in Chinese medicine and acupuncture. One must treat with respect traditions that deserve that respect, whether they are our own or not. We might just learn something. If not, why ridicule anyway? What one does not experience need not be a subject for contempt or ridicule.
In this case, to put it in the terms you have, there may be a piece of the mechanism involved that we're learning about through this practice.
Jun 30th, '09, 15:31
Posts: 529
Joined: Jul 23rd, '08, 17:07
Location: The Isle of Malta
About having to be in the right mindset to experience Cha Qi...perhaps if it was especially strong yes you would feel it if you brewed up a mug of 50's Red Mark to chug down on the way to work...but I hope no one ever drinks 50's Red Mark that way. 
I'm pretty sure everyone here when drinking tea that's of good enough quality to have a strong Cha Qi is going to be setting out their nicest teaware and performing their personal tea ritual...that's a calming, meditative act and that puts you into the mindset in which you can fully experience the tea with all of your senses. And that's what I meant by having to be in the right mindset to fully experience the Cha Qi of a tea...
I'm pretty sure everyone here when drinking tea that's of good enough quality to have a strong Cha Qi is going to be setting out their nicest teaware and performing their personal tea ritual...that's a calming, meditative act and that puts you into the mindset in which you can fully experience the tea with all of your senses. And that's what I meant by having to be in the right mindset to fully experience the Cha Qi of a tea...
Jun 30th, '09, 15:50
Vendor Member
Posts: 1990
Joined: Apr 4th, '06, 15:07
Location: NYC
Contact:
TIM
I guess you are a funny guy then, Teadoff. I "check-out" when I am not drinking tea.Tead Off wrote:We all need to check ourselves out sometime. Right, Tim? I find a lot of humor observing all kinds of things including religious practicioners and tea drinkers.TIM wrote:I hope you are joking Tead Off. To make a joke out of something people practice and dedicate their life to is very off. Because it's not in your head, doesn't mean its not there. Specially around us tea heads.Tead Off wrote:....I have to laugh at the seriousness of Chadao and those who think they are practicing it, somehow. Drink up!
Jul 1st, '09, 00:36
Posts: 78
Joined: Apr 16th, '09, 06:20
Location: Jinghong, Xishuangbanna
Contact:
zhi zheng
cha qi
Yes! And it's certainly ridiculous to be as important as possible.
Wasn't it Proust who said something like "Life is that thing which ridicules he who takes it too seriuosly and treats seriuosly he who takes it too lightly."?
Wasn't it Proust who said something like "Life is that thing which ridicules he who takes it too seriuosly and treats seriuosly he who takes it too lightly."?
Re: cha qi
At the ridiculous I succeed even when I barely try! (she says with a broad flourish ...)zhi zheng wrote:Yes! And it's certainly ridiculous to be as important as possible.
Wasn't it Proust who said something like "Life is that thing which ridicules he who takes it too seriuosly and treats seriuosly he who takes it too lightly."?