Evolution and You

Listen to the Editorial Conversation for this chapter:

“… is it surprising that the tastes, and the good tastes, of more cultivated individuals derive from the homogenous and homogenizing, routinized and routinizing, action of the academic institution; and when all is said and done, are highly orthodox.” – Bourdieu

Chinese Tea Ceremony, as a living art, is constantly evolving. The progression from ground and powdered tea, to boiled in ewers and whisked in bowls, to the contemporary production of Yan Cha (岩茶, “cliff tea”), has all been in response to the evolutionary forces of cultural, economic, and social capital. Gongfu Cha, from its inception, has known nothing but change. The practitioners at the vanguard, those practitioners who progress the praxis, exert their own evolutionary force on the propagation of the ceremony – the techne they display and aesthetic choices they promote all influence their guests, merchants, tea makers, and peers.

The goal of an education is to give the students the knowledge to progress the praxis. The goal of a teacher should be to give their students the formative experiences necessary to appreciate the high-cultural capital techne, wares, and aesthetic values of the praxis – which by virtue of the teacher-student relationship, must match the teacher’s own. If what is considered good today is presented to us by more advanced practitioners, with the right capital and phenomonist approach, are we not predisposed to prefer what they offer?