The Ritual of Tea

I think yesterday's wicked headache may have had - in part - something to do with not having any caffeine intake.  More often, I'll end up with one due to dehydration, but I know I was drinking water yesterday, so all bets are off.

I'm beginning this day with tea and baking before going to visit my mother.

To me, coffee and cigarettes have a lot in common.  As do tea and cigars.  While coffee is so often that quick jolt, a needed drug to begin or muddle through the day, tea is slower.  It takes time.  At least in our house, where we're lucky enough to own a superautomatic coffee maker, tea-making takes a glacial age at four minutes.

Similarly, a cigarette is meant to be quick.  That addicted calm of nicotine.  A cigar, conversely, is a lengthy, slow process of flavor, watching the smoke curl upwards into the sky.

My work life for four years has been so surrounded by coffee that any time I can take to reconnect with tea feels special.  I'll often seek out both when I'm away on holiday, but I more often bring tea home to experience over again.

Like most everyone, I grew up on Lipton Black Pekoe tea bags for both hot or iced teas.  Growing up in Western Pennsylvania in the 1980s, it wasn't like I had a lot of options.  But between travel and local resources here in Pittsburgh, I've found some wonderful tea varietals.

Part of what I want out of this period between jobs is to find the slowness and ritual in life that I can look to when I'm busy again as an anchor, a point of calm.

Baking and cooking are always those moorings.  But tea, I think, makes a beautiful way to start off a day.