As the founder of my very own tea line, I get glimpses into people’s daily tea rituals more than most. Yet I’m still always curious to know: What teaware do they use? Who do they like to drink tea with? Are they drinking tea for a big occasion, or just sipping a breakfast brew on a regular morning? I’m increasingly of the mind that instead of asking about celebrity’s skincare routines, we should be asking about their tea-time rituals. (We got a small glimpse of Kim Kardashian’s in Interview magazine recently, and it was fascinating.)
My first opportunity to test this theory came over a Zoom call with fellow tea lover Marie Kondo, discussing her new book, Kurashi at Home: How to Organize Your Space and Achieve Your Ideal Life. “Tea gives me an opportunity to check in with myself,” Kondo tells me, through a translator, when we connected ahead of a group virtual tea ceremony last month.
My first foray into Marie Kondo’s efficient way of living began when I bought an incredibly messy former roommate her breakout book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up a few years ago. (It’s safe to say that neither of us ended up reading it, and the book got lost within his “stuff” pile.) Still, while I like to think that my passive-aggressive gifting days are over, I wonder if the universe sent me a passive-aggressive sign of its own when Kondo’s new book arrived through my door—along with all the accouterments required to attend a virtual tea ceremony with Kondo herself.
Tuning into Zoom on a Wednesday morning, I joined Marie, her translator, and the tea master who would lead our matcha ceremony the day after the release of Kurashi at Home. “I want readers to be able to visualize their ideal way of life from waking to going to bed without limitations,” Kondo told me and a group of other faceless participants (all videos off). While a Zoom call is not necessarily the ideal way to commune or be present at a matcha ceremony, there is a pragmatism to learning how to properly use the tools to make tea for future experiences. We also got to learn a bit more about Marie herself—she’s a crystal lover who has big crystals in the corner of rooms to purify her space, and also decorates with seasonal flowers “to create a sense of seasonality in the home.” In the context of Kurashi at Home, Marie proposes tea as part of an ideal lifestyle. “I always try to have time for tea three times a day,” she says. “Even if it’s just five minutes, I make a point of taking time for tea as it’s important for me to feel balanced in myself.”
After the ceremony, I put the black matcha bowl away in a cabinet and got rid of the floral tea cup that I knew I’d never use again. (I think Marie would approve.) Indeed, immediately after reading Kurashi, I took one look at the entrance hall of my apartment, which Kondo calls “the face of your home, its most sacred spot” and covered the shoe rack with a blue and white checkered noren curtain that I had bought on Etsy some years past, before offloading a heap of books and design magazines to the free library at the community garden on my block. Still, Kurashi moves away from the focus on tidying that most are used to from Kondo’s Netflix series and other books—reading more as a self-help book, it champions a way of living that suggests that envisioning an ideal lifestyle (whatever that looks like for you) can clear blocks, leading to career success, fulfillment, and marriage.
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