Critical Tea Theory: Gongfu Tea & Gongfu Uncles

From D.T. Suzuki’s teachings on Zen Buddhism to tea ceremony and Daoist breathwork practices, Bay area counterculture in the 1960s took inspiration from Eastern esoteric traditions, responding to a profound disillusionment with Western modernity and late-stage capitalism with a desire for rituals of connection and slowness. Zen, yoga, and other contemplative traditions became central to the countercultural turn. The romance of the East has often furnished the most radical dreams of Western civil