We are very fortunate to have a lot of people that actually read our newsletter (thank you very much) and I know this because I receive so many wonderful messages each month about it. I talk freely in these monthly musings about the impact and support tea has had on Ric’s and my life, but mainly I talk about how exploring and building a relationship to the bigger sentient world around us brings a vibrancy to our life.
However, I rarely talk about the practical and tangible benefits to your health and wellbeing and what we offer to help you make the most of the wonder plant that is tea. I guess I have always assumed people just know it, but listening to Michael Mosley’s podcast where he offers tips about the one thing you should be doing to improve your health and wellbeing and recently cited tea, I realised it might still be a very well kept secret, which isn’t the best secret to keep when you run a tea business!
It is obvious from working in a health food shop, from years of attending health and wellbeing events, from showing up to workplace wellbeing days and following on instagram the biohackers and famous influencers who have switched party drugs for collagen supplements, that everything is pointing to our need for a more natural approach to our health and life, something cleaner and closer to what nature intended for us.
So check one - these teas couldn’t get much closer to source, simply whole leaves picked from the tea plant and dried in a variety of ways. The fact that the expansive and historical Chinese wisdom about plants and their various impacts on human health allowed tea to rise to the very top of the list, not just in China but the world over, AND STAY THERE must count for something.
What makes ATTIC unique is the focus on the 5 different types of tea and what benefits they share and what makes them each stand out. Obviously this is our interpretation and not, I imagine, how the Chinese drink tea (as they probably drink the tea produced within their region) but we hope it offers an invitation to build your own relationship with the tea(s) through your own experiences and enjoy the toolkit for life it can offer.
We offer the introductory set to encourage you to find ‘your’ tea or teas. Try them all and find which are calling to you :)
Physical level - drink the tea(s) you choose as daily tonics, refreshing the same leaves throughout the day, which in addition hydrates you, makes these teas economical and supports good functioning of all your organs and bodily functions. Tea supports your natural self-healing mechanisms helping the body strive for optimum health with everything working as it should.
Mental level - drink the tea(s) you choose and allow their high levels of L-theanine to activate your brain in the way it was designed to function (i.e. both hemispheres firing at the same time), making you more focused and productive, providing a healthier more balanced perspective and making you calmer (as it activates alpha brainwave activity). Stress greatly depletes our life force energy (Chi) so maybe this is why tea is so good at helping us re-cultivate it.
Emotional level - there are intangible qualities to each tea. They each affect the body differently. One might help you feel more present, one might ground you and one might help you find the joy in life once more. One might help support your grief, one might help you connect to something greater. But they all feel supportive and unconditional in that support and we offer an information sheet with the introductory set to help you pick the best one for your current needs.
Soul level - drinking the teas opens up a connection to other practices. So if you are a yogi, tai chi lover, go for regular massages, love some sound healing or embark on sacred pilgrimages, drinking the teas creates the same impact on the brain chemistry as meditation, making you open and more receptive to the benefits. Check out our tea and practice list on the bottom of our homepage.
Spiritual level - why not seek some divine intervention? Our wonderful colleague Jane channelled some very sound guidance from the teas which now form our tea spirit card deck. Simply draw a card, drink that tea and reflect on the wonderful wisdom shared from that tea. Our tea spirit cards were designed for this approach and I find it the best way to go when I know I need something but can’t work out what!
So to expand on Michael Mosley’s one thing, we define health as a truly holistic, constantly changing force of nature. Developing your own relationship with these teas and finding a toolkit for supporting your life’s journey is the invitation ATTIC offers. To help with this, we are adding a mid-month newsletter which will be a cyclical deep dive into one of our 6 teas so you can drink the tea and learn some facts about its benefits and watch some video clips from our practitioner communitea as they share their experiences of that tea.
Thank you for wading through this slightly different newsletter- the normal musings will resume next month! Sharing what we offer, our hope is that those who have forgotten the beauty of the world (of tea!) might chose to reengage or share with someone you know would love to take up the invitation.
Wishing you a beautiful slide into Autumn proper and we look forward to talking to you again in November (yikes November already!)
Anne and Ric x