Tiny Tea Tales: A glass half full
What it means to have a full experience.
I buy tea every season. Fresh from the flush, straight from the garden. It’s one of the few things I absolutely love treating myself to.
Indeed, as soon it arrives, I tear open the palm-sized brown packet with feverish excitement, eager to bury my nose and play the game of “So what does the season smell like and taste like this year?”.
I carefully scoop out a spoonful, toss the mix in my branded-for-the-purpose porcelain tea cup and douse them in steaming water - 85°C, sometimes 90°C but never more. 3 long minutes later I strain the tea into a tall mug - it’s easier to hold and carry around - taking what looks like a half-full mug with me to the table right beside and placing it squarely in front of my face. Stopping, leaning, and bristling my olfactories with steamy hits and soft scents, I let the season take anchor with a sincere, slow surrender for the next many minutes.
In and of itself there is a lot of joy and excitement in this ritual. Like a full-fledged nature adventure from the comfort of my little living room. Though when I started sharing my teas with my partner, the whole ritual turned richer and more…joyful.
In the months we were together, tea became part mine, part his: the brew in the porcelain cup, like the season outside, was equally shared. Along with the tea, I’d write little notes explaining how to go about making a cup and with just as much involvement, he’d dive into the brown packets, steep as instructed (even if scrappily), and write back to me about this experience of the tea. I always made a mental note about what he liked so I could pick teas he’d enjoy. Tea, when it was shared, when it was ours, was so much more than what was in the cup. More vibrant. More playful. More vivid. More everything. The pleasure was no longer hewed in rules - it was anchored in the joy of a shared experience.
The ritual was stamped out when we parted. But I continue to make tea and go about it the usual way. I order my regulars and steep by the rules. Pouring the steamy, scented brew into my tall mug, half full as always, now I take a moment to remind myself that this was the point of tea all along - to take pleasure in what’s right in front. To take pleasure in my own gestures, in all the moving and mixing and smelling and straining and sipping.
To witness myself be is the other half.
This was such a sweet joy to read. You are spot on about tea being the easy gateway to some of the more precious recurring experiences, inching towards being a meditative experience.
I also loved the closing line. It reminds me of something I heard (or read) somewhere that the objective or purpose of life is for us to have someone to witness our selves and our deeds. We base and build our existence on that. But it doesn't necedssarily
This is beautiful.
Filling in the blank to this sentences you posed at the end, is really a quest and a question...."To witness myself be is ______."
Love it (and love those first seasonal flush encounters)