How do you brew your tea?

The answers are as individual as we are, and may vary daily.  After all, most people spend the days doing things for others, typically their employers and their families.  Time is precious; for many people with full lives, time spent on themselves is invaluable.

The preparation of my first cup of tea takes place in the kitchen I share with a teen who, surly and monosyllabic in the mornings, is also convinced that her preparation for school is the highest priority and must take precedence over everything else.  This includes boiling water to pour into her Thermos-o’-noodles.  So I have the choice of waiting until she leaves, or using the microwave.  There is a certain magic in the kitchen dance we perform, a ritualistic quality to my wait on the days I have the time.  My tea tastes better for the delay.

On January 18, the comic strip Arlo & Janis depicted Arlo preparing a cup of tea.  The only text was “Tea is all about ritual!” How true!

In Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden describes the ritual of the tea ceremony:
“…basically, a tea ceremony is conducted by one or two people who sit before their guests and prepare tea in a very traditional manner, using beautiful cups, whisks, and so forth.  Even the guests are a part of the ceremony because they must hold the cup in a certain manner and drink from it just so…My tea ceremony teacher was a young woman of perhaps twenty-five who wasn’t a very good geisha, as I later learned; but she was so obsessed with tea ceremony that she taught it as if every movement was absolutely holy…I must say that it was the perfect lesson to have at the end of a long morning.  The atmosphere was so serene.   Even now, I find tea ceremony as enjoyable as a good night’s sleep.”

Whether your personal ritual requires a class to master or is of a more casual sort, there is beauty in the time we set aside to do this for ourselves.  Savor it, and enjoy!

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