I didn’t always love tea. Nope, more of a chocolatey hot chocolate kind of a girl. I did realise the need to grow up one day and since coffee isn’t my thing I settled on tea.
It was a slow developing love. A relationship so sweet in the beginning it makes my toes curl now to think of it. I have been weaning myself down in the sugar department and occasionally, when I go too far, I think why do I drink this stuff?
I’ll tell you why. It’s the whole ceremony of it. Not the Chinese tea ceremony which is a wonderful thing and a whole other story. It’s the stopping. The down tools. The take a break to enjoy the moment of it that has really grown on me. With a bunch of friends or just on my own. I like making it, I like the changing colours of it, I like the fragrant smell of it and the whole imagining of where it comes from so far away.
That’s not to say I don’t have a cup of tea on the run or when I’m working. How many times have I gotten back into the work and let the tea go cold? Too many. I’d much rather take 10 minutes to imagine myself here drinking my tea in the afternoon. Taking a moment to just chill.
Okay so maybe there are a few too many people there for my liking… and GET OFF THAT RAILING BEFORE YOU FALL AND DIE.
How about here instead. A little tea picnic at the top of that hill. Perfect.
Happy relaxing people, even if it is only for ten minutes! : )
PS Doh! I’ve just had a slightly horrible thought the ladies in the top photo might be drinking coffee. It might be a coffee pot. Oh dear. Coffee and it’s not a cappuccino… *pulls face*
I don’t know. Let’s just pretend it’s tea. Yes. Tea.
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Just stopping by to say, I thoroughly enjoy your blog and read it regularly. And this is exactly the reason I love tea. I have to agree, sometimes it’s NOT for the taste. (But then, sometimes it is.) It’s just worth slowing down for, once in a while. Now I want to go make some. Right now.
Thanks for posting!
I’m glad you did stop by. : ) Thank you for the lovely feedback.
I went and had a cup too. Just by myself, no electronics just me and the dogs (and the heater).
I am the opposite. I hate the heating of the water, the tea bags, the where do I set the tea bag after? If you are saving it to make another cup. Or maybe I just need a little pot to leave it in. Or a little ceramic thingy that’s made for a wet teabag. Or do i toss it after a single use…such a waste. And then it’s kinda weak to taste.
Now I LOVE iced tea, but of course the hassle of filling the container, putting bags in and WAITING while it sits in the sun. But that’s me…probably the same reason that I drink instant coffee.
HA. Me too … sometimes. Teabags get dumped in garden scraps bucket or I just put them in a spare ordinary cup on counter then tip them on the camellias. They love it apparently. Sometimes I take used teabag and let it sit in small jug of hot water, stir in sugar. By the time I remember it’s there it’s cold > bingo! > iced tea. Sort of.
I don’t bother saving the bags for another cup anymore. I just recycle them on the garden (ie chuck em).
“If, he thought to himself, such a machine is a virtual impossibility, then it must logically be a finite improbability. So all I have to do in order to make one is to work out exactly how improbable it is, feed that into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea…and turn it on!”
– Douglas Adams (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy)
I thought about that when I was writing that post! And the bit where Arthur tells the computer the entire history of tea (including the East India Company) and it produces a cup that almost but quite totally fails to resemble tea.