I moved to LA three years ago and met my neighbor, another lady with a French bulldog living in a three bedroom house alone. One fall afternoon after I returned from a silent meditation retreat, she invited me over “for tea.” I imagined we’d sit in her kitchen and chat, like my mother and her friends did with their neighbors. Maybe there’d be a tea cake!

Instead, I found myself in a back room. She motioned to a meditation pillow. Without words, I sat, and we entered silence again, this time together. Having just returned from retreat, when I saw a cushion, I knew to just sit without questioning.

A ceremony of the senses unfolded in front of me. Steam, incense, water, earth. The tea tasted like nothing I’d had before. Although I had no idea what was happening, I understood it instantly: presence, reverence, offering, listening. Bowl after bowl of warm tea offered in silence. No introductions, no explanations. Just a quiet, steady conversation without words. That was the first time I truly spent time with my neighbor. She’s now one of my closest friends and tea sister.

There’s a saying: drink tea, make friends. It’s true. Most of how we communicate is nonverbal, yet so much of life is filled with noise. Tea offers something rare: the chance to sit with yourself but especially others, quietly, honestly, without the need to perform. It’s taught me how to receive. How to offer. How to listen when no one is speaking. In its most fundamental form, a Tea sit is sharing bowls of tea together in silence, and then sharing what comes up.

After my first introduction to Tea, I sat every chance I got. I learned that Cha Dao, The Way of Tea, is rooted in Chinese tradition, and that tea and meditation were never meant to be separate. I eventually became a Cha Tong, a water bearer, for larger ceremonies my neighbor poured, learning the specifics of water, how to give without distraction, how to offer for the sake of offering. I started to see how tea could hold grief, joy, gratitude, and transition.

Eventually, I felt called to learn to pour myself. I attended a weekend course at the Ojai Tea Hut and learned the “leaves in a bowl” form. This and side handle are the types of tea ceremony I now offer, techniques taught through the Global Tea Hut based in Taiwan. Cha Dao, as taught there, rests on four simple principles: Harmony, Respect, Purity, Tranquility. Other guiding principles taught by Global Tea Hut for Cha Dao include Service, Simplicity, Presence, and Lineage & Nature. Not ideas only to study, but qualities you feel in your body the more you practice.

Today, Tea punctuates my life. I pour tea 3 to 6 times a week, often alone, often with my dog asleep nearby. I’ve trained him to be a temple dog. I routinely travel with a truncated teaware set to pour away from home too. I’ve poured tea in a courtyard in the Marais in Paris, in my parents’ garden in San Francisco, and on the beach in Siesta Key for my college friends. I’ve poured at my childhood home and at each of my sisters’ homes, for them and their partners. And I’ve poured for nearly all my friends in LA, old and new. When my aunt died, when my niece was born, as a first (and only) date. 

Tea is universal, but also specific. It’s personalized medicine that unites us and has the power to tap into your true feelings and being. It’s one of the most special offerings I have. I will pour for anyone who asks, and will invite almost anyone I meet.

Some of the most powerful sits I’ve held are in grief. I invite people to bring a photo of the one who’s passed. I pour a bowl for them too. It’s a way of honoring, remembering, making space for what can’t be explained. The steam rises and the room softens, and the presence of that person returns, not as memory or story, but as feeling and energy. I often pour for the ancestors too, known or unknown, whose breath still moves through our lives like the wind.

Though I haven’t poured in a Jewish ritual setting (yet), Tea feels deeply Jewish to me. It invites kavannah, or intention. It honors hiddur mitzvah, beauty in ritual. And like so many Jewish traditions, it holds space for both presence and questioning. What is this moment? What am I feeling? What is being offered? What do I have to offer?

I’d love to pour a Shabbat sit. Candles lit, sun setting, bowls shared as a kind of havdalah-in-reverse. Not closing the week, but opening sacred time.

For my mental health, Tea has been a lifeline. It grounds my nervous system. It helps me return to my body. It offers form when things feel formless. Ritual for grief, spaciousness in overwhelm, a place to land in joy or despair.

If you ever want to sit, just ask.

I’ll bring the tea.

Abby Topolsky is a communications consultant, coach, and media trainer with a specialty in Mindfulness and Enneagram-informed development and high-impact storytelling. She works with founders, executives, and creatives to align voice, vision, and presence—on stage, in the media, and in life. She also teaches workshops to women about money and the nature of work and life, as well as Enneagram offerings for team offsites. Abby is also a longtime Buddhist practitioner having sat in over 1000 hours of silence. She lives in Los Angeles with her dog, who knows exactly when the Tea means it’s time to settle in.