🏹 November Recap

We served 470 cups of free tea in November!

Our November Recap includes:

🥬 Tea & Mutual Aid

🗣️ The Ramble

📷 Tea Stand Takeover

But first, some upcoming events in December:

🫖 Tea Talk (link)
This month's Tea Talk – a small group, facilitated conversation over tea – is on the topic of Death. We'll sit in a circle, sip tea, and share stories. I'll be serving tea gongfu style for the first time. RSVP required!
🗓️ December 11 // 7pm - 9pm // Bushwick

⛩️ The Chai Stand
Free chai for all! Friend Adin will brew some homemade masala chai and we'll serve it to park passersby. Part of our Second Sundays in Maria series.
🗓️ December 8 // 11am - 3pm // Maria Hernandez Park

All upcoming events can be found on the Calendar.

🥬 Serving free tea, building solidarity

Every second Saturday of the month, we serve free tea at a food and clothing distribution in BedStuy organized by Riders4Rights, a Black-led mutual aid group in the neighborhood.

Most folks arrive prior to the start of the distribution to get a spot in line and hang out with their neighbors. Especially in the colder months, offering a hot cup of tea to people while they wait can turn an uncomfortable (physically and sometimes emotionally) experience to one of warmth and dignity.

November's "Distro" (as we refer to them) marked one year of free tea at this particular distribution. It was also the first Distro following the election.

While biking down Malcolm X Boulevard en route to the Distro, I spotted my friend Taylor Maude Love, a local doula who leads meditations at our Steeped in Sound events. I pulled over and we chatted for a second – Taylor was also on her way to volunteer at a mutual aid event with Ancient Song Doula Services! I carried on, inspired by the community action.

As I pulled into Fulton Plaza, I recognized three more friends helping unload produce (including LEEWAY, the co-host of Steeped in Sound), none of whom I expected to see. I said hi to them and all the familiar faces who had secured a spot in line and were now waiting for free food, clothes, and tea!

It felt like everyone was out and about, serving their local communities.

It was more than a feeling. The Distro had the largest turnout to-date by all measures: the most food donated and distributed, the most community members coming to receive food and clothing, and the most volunteers helping out.

This is the way forward! Mutual aid is how we can help people meet their survival needs while simultaneously building solidarity. Mutual aid groups are led and funded by their communities and thus are not dependent on state funding nor wealthy donors – both of which can (and will) pull the plug when it no longer serves them or the narratives they propagate.

I'm still relatively new to the world of mutual aid (this book was a great intro) and generally don't use the term when talking about The Tea Stand. Although many principles of mutual aid are fundamental to The Tea Stand – such as solidarity, knowledge sharing, accessibility – I wouldn't go as far to say we're providing survival needs, and I think this is an important part of the definition.

For now, I prefer framing The Tea Stand as a gateway and partner to mutual aid: we promote local mutual aid initiatives, serve free tea at their distributions, and seek to build solidarity via community conversation.

Free tea for all!

This Wednesday (12/4) we'll be serving free tea at a distribution at Bushwick City Farms organized by Club A, a local anarchist mutual aid group. Reply to this email if you'd like to help out!

🗣️ The Ramble: a new, experimental event

How many homemade cookies would you expect in exchange for one day of babysitting for a friend?

A few days after the aforementioned Distro, I co-hosted an experimental event called The Ramble, during which we explored the topic of "exchanges," including questions like one above. It was an evening of interactive activities, conversation, and tea.

Many months before The Ramble, I served free tea at an event hosted by Light + Sound Design, a semi-private listening loft in Greenpoint. Afterward, I was offered the opportunity to host an event of my own in their beautiful loft.

Unsure what I could do in their space, but eager to find out, I got together with friend and collaborator Nick, who's behind the experimental podcast Into the Ether. We sipped tea and brainstormed.

We agreed that opening the event with a tea ceremony would be grounding and welcoming. As for Nick's portion, he could collect topical voice messages from attendees in advance, weave them into an episode of Into the Ether, and then we could all listen to it together at the event.

But we needed something else... some kind of group activity to wrap things up. Once we settled on the topic for the evening – "exchanges" – the activity became clear: an item swap! Luckily, we knew just the person who could facilitate something like this: our mutual friend and local filmmaker/performer Zack Young.

Thus, we had our schedule for The Ramble:

1. A casual tea ceremony
2. A group listening session
3. An item swap

Now we just had to do it...

It went so well! We sold out the event (this was our first-ever ticketed event) and everyone I talked to after had a great time.

Leading my first-ever tea ceremony with a newly assembled gongfu setup was a little intimidating, and I definitely served some unpalatable cups of tea, but it felt good to practice a different way of doing things. As always, tea, trust, and stories were exchanged.

Next, we all listened to Nick's audio collage of attendees' voice memos. People shared their opinions on how to ensure fair exchanges, whether love is an exchange, and how to compensate people without using money. If you'd like, you can listen to the episode here.

Lastly, following the completion of some "favor conversion tables" devised by Zack (like cookies and babysitting), the item swap began. A gift from an ex was traded for a little Japanese figurine, a handmade stoneware ceramic cup was traded for artisanal tea, a photoshoot was traded for a disc golf lesson.

Everybody lost something, everybody gained something.

Many have asked if we'll do The Ramble again, and right now the answer is... maybe! I still have to talk to Nick and Zack, the co-hosts, about it.

Personally, I think it'd awesome to substitute The Ramble for a Tea Talk every now and then, allowing for different ways of exploring both personal and universal topics, like time and family.

Let me know if you have any topic ideas, and in the meantime, come to a Tea Talk!

📷 Local photographer Noah Sai takes over The Tea Stand!

For the second time in Tea Stand history, a trusted friend hosted a Popup in my place.

I met Noah during a Popup in Maria Hernandez Park back in April. He stopped for a cup of tea without hesitation, sat down on the blanket my side, and we became fast friends. At the time, Noah was living a nomadic lifestyle (not the digital kind) and was hoping to settle down in Brooklyn. We shared stories and exchanged contact information.

Fast forward seven months: Noah lives in BedStuy and I see him all the time, whether at Tea Stand events or to grab a roti at his favorite spot, Jamaican Flavors.

In November, I invited Noah to host a Popup in Herbert von King Park, his local park in his dream neighborhood. He agreed and asked if he could take portraits of all the visitors. I couldn't have been more excited by the idea!

On a Tuesday afternoon, I biked over to the park, set up the stand with Noah, and left it in the hands of someone I'd met while doing the same.

As I pulled away, Noah got his first visitor of the day.

"Free tea? This is so nice!"

I smiled wide and pedaled slow, leaving Noah to serve his community.

After a few hours, I biked back over to Herbert von King Park and returned to The Tea Stand 20 minutes before closing time, curious to learn how the day had went.

His smile said it all.

It had been a busy day, especially for a Tuesday: he served nearly 40 cups of free tea in four hours. However it was the quality, not the quantity, of visitors that defined the day.

With unfettered joy, he told me about the many people he served throughout the day: an even balance of friends of his, friends of mine, and strangers. The coolest motherfuckers, as he put it. Dozens of people shared tea, conversation, and formed new connections.

We reveled in the magic of The Tea Stand: a blend of serendipity, trust, and kindness.

At 3pm, we packed everything up, hugged many times, and walked over to Jamaican Flavors for a roti to end the day.

Check out more of Noah's photos from his takeover here, and reach out if you're interested in hosting a Popup!

Thank you for reading!

In addition to November's events, I also finished a grant application and issue #2 of bōcha! And I celebrated my birthday :)

Thanks to all those who donated tea in November: Physical Graffitea, Stephen, Caroline, Neeloy, and Naqiya.

Keep Steeping,
Miles 🍵