Water Tea Ceremony

History

The sharing of tea among the peoples of the Human Diaspora started from the necessity of caffeine for keeping night watches. It became formalized as a necessary ritual of diplomacy. Humans had become scattered, developing separate cultures for almost every ship on the water, yet they needed trade and news to survive. Eventually, the steps of the tea ceremony became so codified that the ritual itself became a unifying cultural factor. It became a shibboleth that any educated human could take to any ship and find community, familiarity, and meditation.
In the present day, sapient species have begun to reintegrate into a mercantile economy without the legal enforcement of Dwarven customs. Hence, humans have spread the water tea ceremony to the land based communities in which they find themselves. Sapient beings of all types practice and perfect the art of the tea ceremony as a cosmopolitan accomplishment, and it is beginning to develop variations and adaptations borne from this spread.

Execution

A proper tea ceremony takes place on open water, though blue sheets laid on the floor under a smaller brown mat are used in landlocked areas in a pinch. The table, gimbals, and tea blend are prepared in advance. The ceremony is as follows:

1. The participants are seated in the following order: visiting ship, host ship, and finally the host themself, traditionally the captain. It is when the host takes their seat that the ceremony officially begins, and when they stand that it is officially concluded. Everyone had better have their best manners on in between.
2. The youngest crew member of the host ship who is present (YCM) provides everyone with the necessary items to clean their hands: namely a towel and a pour of berberine oil. Everyone rubs the oil on their hands then wipes them off on the provided towel. Then the YCM quietly gathers up the towels and disposes of them in a basket off to the side.
3. The host boils the water and then rinses the teacups, cleansing and warming them. The YCM hands these around. Then the teapot is set aside to cool to an appropriate brewing temperature.
4. The host brings out the tea and toasts it in a dry pan over the brazier. Sometimes this is done very briefly, just to ensure it is fully dry, sometimes the tea is toasted or charred. Then it is added to the teapot, which brews either on or off the heat depending on what the tea actually consists of.
5. The host pours the tea into each cup, no more than a third full (in order to prevent sloshing). The YCM hands the cups around to the participants, guests first. Then the host, who receives their cup last, drinks the first sip and everyone else follows suit. At this point, the participants, who have been silent until now, may speak. The first cup is drunk without kickshaws or additives.
6. Once everyone has finished their first cup, the service becomes much more casual. Kickshaws are handed around, and subsequent cups are filled as they are empty and sweetened (or very occasionally, salted) to taste. It's considered bad form to drink less than three cups or more than six. Four is lucky.
7. To stop being offered tea, leave a sip in your cup.
8. Don't discuss trade, war, or another crew's tea service at the table. Storms and shipwrecks are acceptable subject matter. So is some remarkably bawdy humor. Do praise everything you see, and respond to praise with firm denials. Don't take anything said at the table (such as "we must do this again") too literally unless it is also said away from the table.

Components and tools

The Table: Some tea ceremony tables are round, some hexagonal, some octagonal. Any of these shapes will work as long as everyone is an equal distance from the center of the table and no one's back is precisely facing an exit. All traditional tea ceremony tables have a rim rising at least an inch from the table top, whether the table ever actually rests on a rolling deck or not. The material, decoration, and finish all vary, with some ships taking great pride in ceramic inlay, some tediously maintaining lacquer or a brass finish through the depredations of salt air, and some simply displaying tables of carved wood in clean perfection of line made by some ancestor from centuries past.
The Gimbals: One per participant. Some tables come with gimbals already bolted on (or even places to bolt a separately purchased set of gimbals), while some gimbals clamp to the top or side. Brass is the most common material for these gyroscopic cup holders, but the most prized are thickly plated with gold. Gold is not just prized for the expense but for the relative resistance to salt water. As the size of teacups has standardized, so have the gimbals that keep them level. This means that a captain can buy a table or gimbal set separately from their teacups; gone are the days when one carried one's own clamp gimbal and one's own teacup to the ceremony. The gimbal is always affixed to the right side of the participant, whether on rim or tabletop, and remains so through the ceremony.
The Cups: One per participant. Fine painted china is the material of choice in the present day. Back before standardization, stoneware, wood, bamboo, and metal were also common. (Note: Fine china?! Yes. Delicate, expensive teaware is considered not only an opportunity to show off the material wealth of the ship, but also the sailing skill of the crew. Look at us! We weather storms without so much as chipping a cup!) Each cup has a round bottom and a delicately flared top, and holds half a pint, but is never filled more than a third full. Some cups have a small indentation at this one third level, visible from the inside only.
The Berberine Oil: A single slender jug with a gooseneck pour spout from the bottom, often decorated with symbols of Lífwynn . It contains sweet oil infused with any one of a number of herbs including barberry, goldenseal, goldthread, and phellodendron, so long as they are accessible from the coast and contain the compound berberine. It cuts through grime, has a mild astringent effect on cuts and scrapes, moisturizes salt-chapped hands, and destroys some forms of contagion. It also has a slightly bitter taste. Though the dispenser might not be as fancy as that typically used in a tea ceremony, berberine oil is used every day throughout the human diaspora as an effective cleanser where fresh water is scarce. A towel can be washed in salt water. A human cannot.
The Kickshaws: Snacks. Sweet or savory or both, small portions able to be eaten without cutlery. Examples include fresh or dried fruit, toasted hard cheese served on bread or ship's biscuit, nuts, caraway comfits, tiny tarts and turnovers, small baked or fried cakes, and increasingly, store bought candy. These may be served from a central platter or from individual plates bearing a selection for every one or every two people. In either case, the kickshaw plates should never be emptied. This has led to amusing situations in which a ship rescues survivors from a shipwreck and, as a means of smoothing over ruffled pride, offers a tea ceremony. To ensure the rules about not finishing the kickshaws can be kept, the survivors are provided with a staggering mound of them which they then manage to not...quite...finish.
The Teapot: Although small clay teapots have been favored recently on shore, the teapot more popular onboard ships is a big cast iron thing that can be heated directly over the burner. Your standard iron teapot serves up to two dozen cups at a time, though mostly hosts try to keep the ceremony to about a dozen people or less. Handling the large, heavy teapot with enough grace and delicacy to lightly rinse teacups without spilling, and to pour precisely, is an art requiring both upper body strength and practice.
The Burner: About the size of a lapdog, this brazier or spirit lamp in a metal box with protective grate across the top is used for all tableside purposes. It sits at the right hand of the host on a pad of damp wool. It is always used to dry out the tea itself and to heat the water, but is also used to toast or roast the tea blend, pop grains, or toast cheese as needed.
The Tea: The single most diverse part of the Tea Ceremony, determined not as much by occasion as by the taste and means of the host. In the area near Byriver  true green tea with cornflowers is the most popular choice, but the truth is that "tea" in Common just means "hot water with a plant in it". It could be a fiery root, a freshly charred and ground fruit pit, astringent leaves, lightly toasted grains, or anything else that pleases the crew hosting the Ceremony. The first cup is taken plain, but it's considered good manners to offer an antiscorbutic with subsequent cups. Citrus fruits preserved in honey are the most traditional, though some crews favor salty pickles. Currently, however, marmalade is by far the most popular additive, both on and off the sea.

Participants

Host: Usually the Captain. Prepares the tea and controls the timing of the ceremony.
Youngest Crew Member: Waits upon the table and acts as general dogsbody. Usually too busy to talk.

Primary Related Location

The Waterborne

Related Ethnicities

• The Human Diaspora