❄️ December Recap
Happy new year!
We served 232 cups of free tea in December!
Our December Recap includes:
📦 Winter Tea Box
☁️ Blissing Out with Laraaji
2️⃣ Two Years of Free Tea
But first, some upcoming events in January:
🧺 Teapotluck (link)
Join us in celebrating the two year anniversary of The Tea Stand in Maria Hernandez Park! We'll make a giant pot of communal tea, launch our new zine, and enjoy the winter weather.
🗓️ Jan 5 // 2-4pm // Maria Hernandez Park
🫖 Tea Talk (link)
This month's Tea Talk – a small group conversation over tea – is on the topic of time. We'll sit in a circle, sip tea, and talk about our relationships to the past, present, and future. RSVP required!
🗓️ Jan 8 // 7-9pm // Bushwick
All upcoming events can be found on the Calendar.
📦 Introducing the winter solstice Tea Box!
Every solstice and equinox, we ship Tea Boxes – boxes containing curated tea and local art – to Steepers, people who donate $9/month to support The Tea Stand.
In December, we assembled and shipped out our winter solstice Tea Boxes. They include...
- issue #2 of bōcha (our biannual zine)
- a locally illustrated postcard!
- a variety of loose leaf teas
This was our second time putting together Tea Boxes (our first batch was for the fall equinox) and we're thrilled with all of the improvements!
Issue #2 of bōcha – a zine we author and design to share stories, resources, and updates on The Tea Stand – is 3x longer than issue #1. It features way more creative writing and new and improved visuals (like graphics, images, and infographics).
bōcha is the most significant creative expression of The Tea Stand to date – it's where our values, our design, our work, and our community are put on full display!
In addition to being included in the winter Tea Boxes, we'll also have copies of bōcha at future events until we run out.
We also collaborated with our friend and local artist Val to illustrate a postcard for the winter Tea Box.
I met Val during a Popup in Herbert von King Park earlier this year and we've shared many cups of tea since – at park Popups, at Steeped in Sound, and in each other's homes!
We're big fans of Val's playful style and anthropomorphic creatures and we love what she drew for the postcard. Even the back side is fun and hand-drawn!
All future Tea Boxes will include a locally illustrated postcard, by Val or a different artist in the neighborhood :)
And don't forget about the tea! Each Tea Box contains 3 different types of tea chosen with the seasonal change in mind. It's a fun way to sample varied teas and welcome the new season.
For the winter Tea Box, we selected the following teas...
- Lapsang souchong: a classic Chinese black tea smoke dried over a pinewood fire – feels like a warm cabin on a snowy day!
- Bōcha: a Japanese green tea after which our zine is named. Also known as kukicha, it's made from the stems and stalks of tea plant and is historically a favorite of tea farmers and the working class. A symbol of solidarity!
- Capricorn: an herbal blend created for Capricorn season – contains lemongrass, apple, orange, lavender, blue cornflower, and more.
All of the tea comes from The Ridge Café in New Paltz, New York. Sippers & Steepers receive 10% off online orders!
Putting together The Tea Boxes requires a lot of love and labor, and this time around, it was far from a solo endeavor.
I owe a HUGE thank you to Olaia from Unfound. Not only was it Olaia's idea to include a postcard in The Tea Boxes, but they set aside an entire afternoon for a photoshoot – all of the above graphics wouldn't exist without them. (Unfound is also part of our discount program, just like The Ridge!)
Here's an IG post with some more photos and videos showing the process behind The Tea Boxes.
As of writing this, we have 3 Tea Boxes left this batch, so sign up if you'd like to receive this box (and every future box) and support The Tea Stand! Our membership program is how we hope to make this whole project sustainable while staying true to our anti-capitalist values.
The next Tea Box will be for the spring equinox in March :)
☁️ Free tea for Laraaji, ambient music pioneer
Are you familiar with Laraaji? I wasn't until earlier this year, when friend and collaborator Nick shared a treasure trove of ambient music with me. One of the many tracks I saved was by an artist I had never heard of: Laraaji.
Turns out, Laraaji is a legend. In 1979, he was busking in Washington Square Park when Brian Eno strolled by and dropped his card in Laraaji's tip jar. One year later, Laraaji produced the third installment of Brian Eno's acclaimed Ambient series, Ambient 3.
I'll pause the biography here, but I recommend going down the Laraaji rabbit hole – it includes mystic studies, laughter workshops, and a vast, influential catalog of new age music.
All this to say: I was SHOCKED when I was offered the opportunity to serve free tea at a local Laraaji performance a couple weeks ago!
Laraaji was to perform at Kaleidoscope, a community art space and studio which opened its doors in Bushwick earlier this year. I've served tea there a couple of times – for an album release event and an open studio day – and have nothing but amazing things to say. It's a beautiful space ran by beautiful people and I'm honored to be a part of what they do.
Take a space like Kaleidoscope, bring in a magical artist like Laraaji, and add some free tea to the mix... and you've got yourself a special evening.
The whole event was a dream.
We served fig leaf tea from the fig tree in the venue's courtyard (it's for sale at the venue!), chatted softly and listened closely, and blissed out with friends new and old. Laraaji, who's 81 years old (!!), opened his set with a pure, resonant laugh, which I now recognize as the greatest way to start a performance.
Plus we got paid! As The Tea Stand is my only source of income, being financially compensated for an event which aligns so well with our values is super affirming and encouraging.
(Many ask if we'd ever serve tea at a corporate event... I'm leaning yes, as we'd love to radicalize their employees and encourage them to unionize, but it's hard to say for sure.)
Thanks again to Kaleidoscope for hosting and having us, and to Laraaji for blessing us with his mystical sounds and presence!
2️⃣ Celebrating two years of The Tea Stand!
Golly... we're 760 days and 4,751 free cups of tea into this thing.
It's hard to feel those numbers; to wrap my head around the fact that a fun little idea has evolved into me serving tea to Laraaji and creating zines and hosting nearly 100 events per year.
Nevertheless, here we are, and I'm grateful for the end-of-year slowdown as an opportunity to pause and reflect.
One word in particular has been coming up a lot recently: pressure. As The Tea Stand continues to take form – as we make our programming more regular, our design more consistent, our values more clear – it feels more and more like The Tea Stand is gaining momentum and I'm just along for the ride.
To some degree, it's felt like this from the beginning. As many artists will testify, the creative process is one of surrender, of letting go of control and following your intuition.
For The Tea Stand, this often manifests as opening ourselves up to the ideas and perspectives of those around us. Distros, Steeped in Sound, bōcha – all of these core aspects of The Tea Stand were conceived by our neighbors, local artists, and longtime friends. We just listened and followed their lead. (Thanks Collective Focus, LEEWAY, and Adin for these ideas in particular!)
And look at where it's brought us! For reference, this is what a typical month looks like at The Tea Stand:
Programming:
- 2-3 Park Popups (Maria Hernandez Park, Herbert von King Park)
- 2-3 Event Popups (art markets, community events, etc.)
- 1-2 Distros
- 1 Tea Talk
- 1 Silent Sanctuary
- 1 Steeped in Sound (every other month)
Admin:
- Membership perks: Tea Boxes, bōcha, Livestreams, etc.
- Monthly newsletter
- Graphic design
- Collaboration opportunities / communication
- Tea donation pickups
- Grant applications (2-4 per year)
- Media opportunities
- Website improvements
- Nonprofit paperwork nonsense
It's amazing to step back and appreciate the progress we've made and what The Tea Stand has become. But at the same time, it's difficult to look at this long list of recurring responsibilities and not feel intimidated and afraid!
This, I think, is where the pressure comes from – the need to show up everyday. Whether that means biking around Brooklyn, sitting in the cold for five hours, hosting a Tea Talk in my apartment, packaging Tea Boxes, or writing this newsletter, practically all of my physical and creative energy is spent on keeping this project running.
One way forward is to share the workload: ask for more help, delegate tasks, find a partner. This is something I'm continuously experimenting with (hence the guest-hosted Popups, collaborative photoshoots, volunteer opportunities) and still figuring out.
My main focus in terms of responding to this pressure, however, is to face it head on. Accepting this long list of responsibilities – and reframing them – is an active, ongoing effort of mine.
If the work is here to stay, how can I develop a healthier relationship with it? How can I approach the responsibilities of The Tea Stand from a place of love instead of stress? Is it possible to divorce myself from the outcomes of my actions and just focus on the actions themselves?
These are the questions I'm currently contending with. I'm trying to bring myself to a place where responsibility is a healthy form of accountability, where pressure feels like a privilege, where gratitude undergirds all I do. It's a matter of changing the narrative from "I have to do this" to "I get to do this".
Trust – the central concept of The Tea Stand – is a big part of the equation here. Trusting our community to continue to support and transform The Tea Stand, trusting in myself and my capabilities, trusting my support system to help me through the tough bits, and trusting the universe to keep showing me the way forward.
It will be hard, but so are most things worth doing. As Rumi wrote,
What sort of person says that they want
to be polished and pure, then complains
about being handled roughly?
All of this said... here are some milestones we can all celebrate from the second year of the Tea Stand!
- 3,598 free cups of tea served across 92 events
- Launch of the membership program
- Dozens of collaborations with local artists, mutual aid groups, community spaces
- New events: The Free Market, Silent Sanctuary, The Ramble
- Media coverage by a Japanese news program, Bushwick Daily, NY1, BK Reader
Thank you – to those reading this, to those who decided to trust a stranger serving free tea in a park, to those who support this initiative by donating tea and dollars, to those who share our vision of a post-capitalist future and work toward making it a reality.
And if you want to celebrate two years of The Tea Stand in person, come to the Teapotluck on Sunday!
FREE TEA FOR ALL, FOREVER!!!
Thank you for reading and happy new year!
And thanks to all those who donated tea in December: Elliot, my Grandma, Club A, Ancestral Wellness Co, Kaleidoscope, and Josh.
Keep Steeping,
Miles 🍵
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