Being Tea offers private online tea tasting experiences, customized for organizations and teams.
We all recognize that sinking feeling of being busy, over-committed, checked out. We also know it’s not a feeling that supports our creativity and lasting well-being. By making time to be with our colleagues in a meaningful way outside of work, we strengthen our daily relationships and ways of understanding the world.
To foster this much needed reconnecting in workplaces and organizations, I offer relaxed, soothing private tea tastings and tea meditation experiences for corporate and group audiences. Online and accessible wherever you are!
Why tea? The natural intimacy of tea reminds us what we’re missing out on when we constantly rush through life. With tea, we invite an opportunity for listening, slowness, and the value of just taking a moment to breathe. It’s a pause that no one ever regrets taking.
Private tea tastings and mindful experiences with tea create a restorative space for genuine connection and decompression of built up tension.
How do private online tea tastings work?
These experiences are held live on Zoom, from the lovely Being Tea online studio. Everything in a private tea tasting happens together in real time, as a group, including the whole tea brewing process. We move at a relaxed pace, so colleagues and attendees who are not as familiar with tea have no need to worry about falling behind. Also, teas are provided by Being Tea, so that attendees can experience beautiful loose leaf teas together.
Your tea tasting and meditation could include topics like:
- Introduction to tea as a daily mindfulness practice.
- Exploring a range of tea types and learning how to appreciate loose leaf tea.
- Sensory-rich tastings tailored for the season, such as cold brew teas in summer, spicy blends in winter.
- Guided meditations with tea for reducing stress and easing difficult situations.
- Themed tastings and tea talks that support the larger purpose of your meeting or event, such as:
- Interconnection; Environmental responsibility; Cultural awareness, etc.
Do all private online tea tastings include meditation?
Leading guided tea meditation for groups is my specialty and a practice I love sharing. However, as a professional tea educator of 20 years, I also equally love experiences that are simply having fun with tea skills and tasting, too.
Regardless of topic, my own teaching lens is rooted in appreciating tea mindfully. So, even if we’re not “practicing meditation”, per se, we’re still experiencing how tea naturally brings us closer together.
This kind of subtle emotional awareness can be helpful for groups who might feel a little nervous about trying guided tea meditation together, but who also want that benefit of relaxing and unwinding with tea.
I’ve offered tea meditation and private tea tasting experiences for organizations all over the US.
Previous clients and engagements include:
Nationally (United States):
– Meta / Facebook
– Harvard Divinity School
– Duke University
– Florida State University
– Salesforce
– World Tea Expo
– Northwest Tea Festival
– PDX Tea Fest
– Midwest Tea Festival
In Chicago (my home city):
– We Grow Chicago
– University of Illinois Chicago (Critical Care initiative)
– Deloitte
– Tejas Yoga
– Inner Sense Healing Arts
– Room to Breathe
– Chicago International Tea Festival
All topics are presented in a culturally competent, trauma-informed, and accessible manner for all levels of experience with tea or with mindfulness. Beginners are also very welcome in my space – I am a proud teacher of thousands of beginners! I’ll work with you closely to create a tea tasting experience that meets your team’s needs and interests.
“It was a true joy to walk through the experience with you. [Jane] said she LOVED it and that it is something she wanted to do more frequently, as it was extremely rejuvenating.” – Meta / Facebook
“I don’t think many people know tea like Sooz knows Tea. Sitting with Sooz is like sitting with any artist who loves their medium enough to know it is alive.” – Adam Grossi, Chicago yoga teacher / artist
ABOUT YOUR FACILITATOR :
Suzette Hammond (‘Sooz’, they/she) is a nationally-recognized, award-winning tea educator, professional skills trainer, and tea contemplative and spiritual practitioner. Sooz is the founder of Being Tea – an education-focused business offering an interactive online membership community, customized workshops and private tea tastings, as well as a first of its kind professional teacher training program. Their teaching style centers on sensory-supportive adult learning, addressing knowledge accessibility and equity issues in education, and promoting tea as a practice for emotional and spiritual well-being. Their nearly two decades of teaching experience includes working with leading tea companies, corporate clients, trade organizations and nonprofits across the US and internationally.
Sooz is also a certified psychologically-sensitive yoga and meditation teacher (200-hr) through Room to Breathe – a clinically integrated yoga facility partnered with Center Psychotherapy Chicago. Sooz’s specialty is leading trauma-informed tea meditation for therapeutic support, and they have been offering this practice since 2010.
Interested to learn more? Let’s plan your tea experience.
NOTE: At this time (2023), I have not resumed any in-person teaching events that are held indoors. This includes nationally as well in Chicago and surrounding suburbs. My program is for online offerings only. Thank you for your understanding.
Is online as “good” as in-person? You bet. I have been offering online tea programming since 2017, and I teach classes every week. So you’re in very experienced hands – reach out to me here and let’s get started!
“And at the end of the day,
the reality is
that whether we
change
or whether we stay
the same
these questions will
remain.
Who are we
to be
with one
another?
and
How are we
to be
with one
another?”
– Pádraig Ó Tuama
Irish theologan, poet, and conflict transformation practitioner