Pursuits: The Tea Evangelist, Kursten Brewer
Kursten Brewer believes everyone could benefit from the simple ritual of sitting around a table, slowing down and drinking tea.
Enter Kursten Brewer’s Hawai‘i Kai home, and a world of tea awaits. Tucked amid Koko Marina’s waterfront townhomes, Brewer’s tea library is replete with an extraordinary collection of Chinese teas, teapots and other rare teaware acquired over the years. He’s amassed more than 200 kinds of pu-erh, a fermented Chinese tea, and an equally impressive selection of liu bao from Guangxi province. Brewer shows me cakes of pu-erh harvested in the 1980s. “Twelve or 13 years ago when I bought these, they were quite affordable—now they’re like $5,000 per cake,” he says.
His teaware collection is likewise museum worthy. He handles a pot made from rare, wood-fired purple clay, and another that’s more than 200 years old from the Qing dynasty. “You could spend a month drinking out of different pots and cups and exploring the same tea, and you would have different experiences with each one,” Brewer says.
A few days earlier, I attended a “meditation + tea” gathering at his house. We sat on cushions at a low table as he meticulously prepared and poured four courses of tea. We savored the scents and flavors, starting with rosebud, then moving on to a bold pu-erh, followed by an earthy liu bao. We ended with refreshing chrysanthemum. Brewer told us how the teas work together harmoniously. Some expand us; others sink into us. Some warm the body; others cool it. He encouraged us to contemplate the feeling of each.
While not as trendy as Japanese matcha, Chinese teas have become more popular in recent years. In China, modern teahouses are booming, and the U.S. has seen a surge of new Chinese tea establishments. Brewer’s mission is to provide opportunities for people in Hawai‘i to experience what he describes as the “life-changing mindfulness” of preparing, pouring and drinking tea.
Brewer’s foray began 15 years ago when he lived in Colorado. While at an artist friend’s studio, his friend poured him a pu-erh. As day turned into night, Brewer had what he describes as an “inner-worldly” experience, an awakening. “We were drinking out of these little cups, from the same pot of tea, and each cup, each layer, took me to deeper levels of experience,” he says. “The lights were turned on—something shifted.”
Within a week, he traveled to Oregon to study with a tea master—and returned to Colorado with a teapot, teaware and inspiration to cultivate his own practice. He found himself slowing down and being more present. He started meditating and practicing yoga, qigong and tai chi, a stark change from his previous life. “I came from a lifestyle that was the harder you work, the more you will earn,” says Brewer, a former electrical engineer who worked 70 hours a week. “I didn’t have time to pause or enjoy my life.”
He began traveling to festivals, retreats and other events to share the experience of tea. He built a library, acquiring quality teas and teaware for his personal collection but also to sell to others. He became known as “the tea guy,” with plans to expand a business he was building with a partner. Then, life took a dramatic turn.
In 2023, Brewer was diagnosed with Stage 4 multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. He was given four months to live and sent home in hospice care. While that prognosis would send most spiraling, Brewer didn’t despair. “I was able to see its purpose almost immediately because of the self-knowing and understanding, instead of rejecting or blaming,” he says.
He prepared to die, spending time with friends and making plans to give away his massive library. As a Tibetan Buddhist, he dropped into a deep spiritual practice of acceptance and surrender while going through chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Five months after his diagnosis, he was cancer free. “It was like getting 30 more tokens to have adventures,” he says. Although he later relapsed then had a stem cell transplant and more chemotherapy, his current condition is stable. Amid all the ongoing medical appointments, he doesn’t dwell on the unknowns.
Brewer moved to Hawai‘i about a year and a half ago, getting out of Colorado’s high altitude and dry, cold air. Since then, he’s been building Jade Frog Tea, a Honolulu-based business. Along with selling tea and teaware to people around the world, he’s organizing classes and events at his tea house.
He describes the offerings as “a modern expression of Chinese gongfu tea—where quality aesthetics and the art of contemplation come together in a distinctive tea experience.” The events include morning tea meditation, a monthly tea gathering and private tea experiences. He also offers what he calls an “open tearoom,” where guests come and order tea, and Brewer prepares it for them.
His hope is to bring tea to the masses, creating a simple ritual where people sit around a table, slow down and connect to others. “It’s a way to help people listen, gather and enter a doorway of contemplation and be present,” he says. “I want to inspire people to begin their own tea practices, to cultivate the art of contemplation so they can shift, change and grow. When we sit down and have a pot of tea, we start observing, listening and sensing.”
Many have already told Brewer that tea likewise changed their lives. “It’s a spark,” he says. “You catch a flame.”
