Born in Boston, Mass. into an old New England family, Murphy resides with his wife and two children in Santa Fe, NM. A seminary drop-out, he graduated from the American Tea Masters Association's tea mastership program and is the senior student of tea master and Taoist priest, Roy Fong. He also studied at the Chinese National Tea Research Institute in Hangzhou, China Lecturing nationally, most recently for the Santa Fe Opera in conjunction with their US premier of Tea: Mirror of the Soul, and interviewed on alternative radio, and author of many tea articles, he owns Jade Mountain Tea Co.