Tea has been a staple of my life for a long time. From scalding myself with it because a spilled a mug as a kid right up to now. It's quite... phenomenal to me in a way how much in life is linked to a drink. And how it has such a bloody and brutal history itself.
But I'm not here to give a history lesson. However, if the history of tea does interest you, then this website is a good place to start - https://www.tea.co.uk/history-of-tea
What I did just want to talk about something that I've noticed as I get older and that is the little rituals we have in our lives. How we do things in specific ways and never deviate from them. And making tea is definitely one of those for me. There is a long culture of tea ceremonies and rituals across the world from East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Persia, North Africa and Europe, across millennia.
And it doesn't escape my notice how these little rituals are kind of a solace for me. Just the act of taking 5 or 10 minutes to boil the kettle, to sit back and wait quietly and just absorb and sort out my emotions from a long day. Infusing the water with the tea. Letting it step. Savouring the smell of the leaves as the steam rises. The first sip, closing my eyes and letting the heat wash through me. It's a little bit of bliss in an often tumultuous and at times, despair-inducing world.
It is one of the little wonders that I look forward to each day. And I just think about the way I do things now - the way I set down to read a book, the way I set down to write or to game. The way I start my mornings with the same playlist. The way I always click a pen three times before using it and again as I put it in my pocket. The way I organise my pockets before I leave the house - Phone, notebook and pen, keys, wallet.
Each is a little ritual I perform each day without really thinking about it. But at some point I did. At some point there was a conscious decision to organise things in that way, to perform it in that way. And it made me realise just how much of a performance our lives really are; the masks we wear, the roles we play and the way we act them. Shakespeare had it right when he coined the phrase "All the world's a stage".
I don't say this with any hint of sarcasm or derision - I just marvel at the way we do things as human beings and how that forms intricate little parts of who we are as people.
Until next time though, I must finish my tea before it goes cold. That really would be a cardinal sin.
Come have a cuppa with me sometime.
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