exercise · all tools
Mad Tea and Calm Tea
Depth · what it can open●●○○2 — reflective
Holding · facilitation1 — host
Trust · group readiness★any
Disclosure · what is sharedoptional
Two concentric circles face each other; the facilitator fires open sentence-stems ("what I appreciate in this situation is…", "a next step for me is…") and pairs complete them fast before the outer circle rotates. Mad Tea is the louder, energetic in-person version; Calm Tea is the quieter online variant, completed in chat. A whole room's honest snapshot in minutes.
Practical
- Time
- 20-25 min
- Group
- 6–∞ · pairs, large-group
- Settings
- in-person, online
- Materials
- Open space for concentric circles; prompts displayed
- Mechanisms
- dialogic-encounter, cognitive-reframing
- Change scope
- state · repeatable
Instructions
- Where
- liberatingstructures.com/mad-tea-calm-tea — Liberating Structures, open
- Availability
- Open online — published at the link, free to read
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
Source link checked 29 Aug 2026 — unchanged since we recorded it on 28 Aug 2026
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Henri Lipmanowicz, Nancy White & Keith McCandless — Liberating Structures
In this directory via Liberating Structures
Related: Open Sentences (variant-of)
status: checked · added 2026-08-25