Philosophy

Attention

In my third season of trail work, in the North Cascades of Washington, I once stopped mid-task—pickaxe in hand, cleaning a trail drain—just to stare at the meadow around me. Forty species of wildflowers, all at peak bloom. No one around for miles. Just the wind, the earth and my own breathing.

That's what tea should do. It should make you stop. Put down the phone. Notice the color of the leaves, the steam rising, the way the cup feels in your hands. Now is all there is, over and over again.

Materials

I make ceramics with clay dug from local valleys and glazes from ash and rocks in my backyard. Not because it's trendy, but because it connects my work to the place I live. The same principle guides my tea blending: Start with quality materials. Don't take shortcuts. Let the ingredients speak for themselves.

The hundred-year-old crosscut saws we used for trail work taught me this. Old tools, used properly, do better work than new ones used carelessly. The right materials will do the best job with the fewest additions.

Ritual

I met a man in the mountains of New Mexico who lived without TV or internet. He told me that the home he’d built with his own hands had become a place of peace and sanctuary for him for the last 25 years . We shared meals, he prayed over me, we talked until the stars came out.

That's what ritual does—it creates sanctuary in ordinary time. Boiling water becomes meditation. Steeping tea becomes patience practice. Drinking alone becomes solitude; drinking together becomes communion. Every action has the potential to be elevated through presence and intention.

Resistance

It's 2025 and the internet has lost much of its charm. We're drowning in short-form content, instant everything, constant distraction. Making tea by hand—and pottery by hand—is a small act of resistance.

Not aggressive resistance. Gentle resistance. The kind that says: I choose slowness. I choose attention. I choose this moment over everything else.

Intention

In trail work, every swing of the pickaxe matters. Cut too shallow and the drain won't work. Too deep and you've weakened the trail. You learn to read the land—where water wants to go, where roots will hold—and work with it, not against it.

Tea blending is the same discipline. I don't throw ingredients together hoping for the best. Each ingredient has a purpose. Chamomile for calm, yes, but also for its soft notes that round out sharper flavors. Ginseng and ginger roots not just for nutrition, but for the grounding earthiness they bring.

When I'm building a blend, I'm asking: What does this tea want to do? Help someone wake gently? Settle a restless mind? Mark the end of a long day? The answer shapes everything—ratios, steeping time, even which cup I'd drink it from.

You can taste intention. Or its absence. It doesn’t happen on accident.

Presence

The wilderness has a way of demanding you show up completely. Miss the cairn marking the trail junction, and you're lost. Ignore the weather signs, and you're caught in a storm. There's no halfhearted way to navigate when you’re thirty miles from the nearest road—or water.

Most of us don't live that way anymore. We're here but thinking about there. Present but planning ahead. Drinking tea while scrolling, eating while working, talking while texting. I’m just as guilty of it as anyone.

Presence is a practice, and tea is a good place to start. Five minutes where the only question is: What am I tasting right now? Not what I tasted last sip. Not what the next cup might be. This one, this moment, this particular warmth spreading through my chest. Each moment is once in a lifetime.

Practice

I learned to backpack by doing it wrong. By bringing too much of the wrong stuff, weathering storms, sleeping cold, falling, getting injured, and carrying unnecessary gear every step of the way. The Appalachian Trail was a harsh teacher. Slowly, I sent gear home. I replaced what broke with lighter, more durable equipment, and learned to do without plenty more. As my pack lightened, so did my steps. My feet learned to find stable footing. I began to understand how to get up and get hiking early. To consistently walk twenty-five miles or more a day, and to pitch my shelter in the dark, in the rain, and in the wind. Do it right a thousand times and your hands will know before your mind does.

There's no shortcut to that kind of knowing.

People ask me about the "perfect" tea ritual. Water temperature, steep time, the right teapot. I tell them: Start simple. Boil water. Add tea. Wait. Taste. Do it again tomorrow.

The practice isn't in getting it perfect. It's in showing up. Making tea when you're tired. When you're happy. When you're grieving. When it's Tuesday, nothing is happening, and you just need something warm to hold.

After a hundred cups, you'll know how you like it. After a thousand, you'll know why.

Accessibility

The tea world can feel precious. Expensive equipment, rigid rules about brewing, prices that assume everyone has disposable income for small luxuries.

I'm not interested in making tea complicated. You don't need a gaiwan or a temperature-controlled kettle or my handmade ceramics (though I hope you'll love them if you choose them). You need hot water and tea leaves and a few quiet minutes.

These blends work in a mason jar. In a chipped mug. In whatever you've got. The point isn't performing tea appreciation. It's actually appreciating tea.

Connection

For more than half of the over 8000 miles I’ve hiked around the country, I’ve been alone. Miles between me and the nearest other hiker—if there were any at all. Just me, the mountains and the silenc e they. I thought I wanted that solitude.

During all that time alone, I’ve often thought about what it is that drives me to these remote areas—the escape, yes, but also the return. Going out so I remember what there is to come back to.

Tea can be solitary practice. Often is. But it's also how strangers become friends. How endings are marked and beginnings blessed.

When you buy tea from me, you're not just getting a product. You're connecting to the valleys where I dug clay. The hands that harvested these leaves. The quiet mornings I spent testing ratios until they felt right. The person who'll brew this same blend a thousand miles away, maybe thinking about slowing down.

I’d like to share a buddhist grace shared by Gary Snyder in The Practice of The Wild

We venerate the Three Treasures (teachers, the wild, and friends)
     And are thankful for this meal
     The work of many people
     And the sharing of other forms of life.

Why Bonsabi Exists

I'm not trying to build an empire. I'm trying to make objects that help people pay attention. Tea blends that reward patience. Ceramics rough enough that you can't help but notice them.

If even one person brews a cup, sits down, and actually tastes it—that's the point. Everything else is just commerce.

Make yourself a nice cup of tea. Then maybe make one for someone else. Remember to love yourself, and please don’t oversteep.

all photos by Ryan Stoyer