The Sweetness of Enough

With the launch of Sacred Mountain Teas and the official website now live—featuring my curated collection of exquisite, small-batch, biodynamic teas—I’ve been reflecting deeply on flavor, and how it mirrors the cycles of energy in our lives, the turning of the seasons, and the rhythm of the Five Elements.

In modern times, we’ve developed a taste—perhaps even a dependency—for extreme flavor. Snack companies (and tea companies, too) deliver this through highly

artificial products that overwhelm the palate with bold, instant intensity. There are two main reasons, I believe, we’ve come to crave such extremes. First, much of what we call “natural” food has been depleted of its vitality. We rarely experience the umami depth of a garden-fresh tomato or the earthy sweetness of a carrot pulled straight from the soil. Stripped of their complexity, these foods can feel bland, leading us to turn toward processed products for stimulation.

The second reason is addiction to intensity itself. Each product is engineered to be louder, brighter, and more stimulating than the last. Once we’ve accustomed ourselves to this level of sensation, it becomes difficult to find pleasure in subtlety—even when we encounter truly fresh, nutrient-rich food. Our taste buds are trained to chase the next hit of flavor, though it rarely nourishes us.

We've lost the reverence and sacred connection to Earth which brings a beautiful depth and meaning to life - subtle, nuanced, and deeply satisfying.

This pattern echoes in our modern lives. I would equate these flavor-intense foods to an overabundance of fire energy—pure stimulation. We live in a society fueled by fire: constant productivity, overwork, perpetual striving (“burning the candle at both ends”). Our nervous systems are in overdrive, and instead of seeking calm to counterbalance the frenzy, we crave the next surge—the bigger job, the stronger caffeine, the louder recognition, the brighter distraction. We cling to these artificial substitutes for aliveness, hoping the next burst of intensity will finally make us feel something. Yet in this cycle, our sensitivity to nuance and subtlety is dulled. Life itself begins to feel flat without constant stimulation, because we’ve lost the reverence and sacred connection to Earth which brings a beautiful depth and meaning to life - subtle, nuanced, and deeply satisfying.

To restore balance, we must lean into the down-shifting energies. This means resisting the lure of toxic productivity and overstimulation, and instead turning toward the Earth element. Earth invites us to slow down, cultivate gratitude, and rediscover the sweetness of enough. It reminds us to nourish the soil of our lives so it is rich and fertile, capable of sustaining health and vitality in mind, body, and spirit. This seasonal transition from late summer into fall holds precisely this invitation: to pause, give thanks, and gather what truly nourishes us before the descent into winter.

Learning to drink living tea is a practice in reawakening our palate to nuance, in the same way we must relearn the subtleties of whole foods and the quiet rhythms of a slower, more intentional life.

Living tea embodies this wisdom. Wild, old-growth trees, rooted in biodynamic soil and cultivated with reverence, yield leaves infused with depth, complexity, and vitality. The difference between such tea and its commercially grown counterpart is striking. Yet many tea companies mask the dullness of depleted leaves with intense, engineered flavors—often labeled “natural”—feeding the cultural appetite for more stimulation rather than true nourishment. Learning to drink living tea is a practice in reawakening our palate to nuance, in the same way we must relearn to appreciate the subtleties of whole foods and the quiet rhythms of a slower, more intentional life.

It is with this vision that I have curated Sacred Mountain Teas. Each offering is meant not just as a drink, but as a guide back to depth, vitality, and balance—helping us remember what it feels like to be truly nourished. I look forward to sharing this journey with you.

"Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple and more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous." - Leonardo da Vinci