I have a Ninja now, a birthday present from my children. This particular Ninja is a teapot; more specifically, a device for heating water to pour over tea. There are settings for green tea, white tea, black tea, coffee, and for boiling water.
I like Irish Breakfast tea for my morning drink and have used my ninja for two mornings in a row. Imagine my surprise to find that water at the correct temperature for black tea results in a noticeably better flavor than simply boiling water and pouring that over the leaves.
There is a passage in The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin (on whom the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer was based) where he is talking about his Tai Chi instructor silently getting his attention, posing just as Waitzkin was posed, and moving one hand a half inch. When Josh made the adjustment, the pose made more sense and the movement that came next had more power. In my own experience with Tai Chi, a misalignment of just a few degrees makes a move clumsy and difficult; correcting the alignment makes an enormous difference.
The difference between being almost right and right seems sometimes to be of little or no consequence, until we make the correction. Many of us have had the experience of watching someone perform a physical task and been struck by the ease with which the action is taken. Athletes do this, but so do carpenters, farmers, artists, musicians.
There’s an element of practice and repetition in acquiring these skills, but there is also something more, something akin to allowing the move to happen instead of forcing it. It doesn’t lend itself to description, but when things orient themselves and fall into place, it’s a feeling unlike any other.
I haven’t tried green tea yet with my Ninja, but I intend to soon. It’s a matter of only a few degrees in temperature, and I’m curious to find out if I can taste a difference.