"One drinks tea to forget the world's noise; it is not for those who eat rich food and dress in silk pyjamas." - T'ien Yiheng c.1570
I wish to share with you the following (based on the entertaining book How to be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson):
Four o'clock tea. It makes sense. It marks the point in the day at which your energy is at its lowest. It's a time for reflection, to slow down, to pause and breathe and contemplate life.
Tea should be a daily ritual.
The legendary fisherman, Chris Yates (Who???) explains that "Tea making, like tea drinking, must be a leisurely, contemplative affair, the mind calming as the loose leaves are given ample time to swirl, separate and glow in your teapot". Quite poetic, mr. fisherman.
The enemy of tea is coffee. Joyless coffee. Hodgkinson bashes coffee drinking by controversially declaring that "Coffee is for winners, go-getters, early-risers, guilt-ridden strivers, money obsessives and status-drivem spiritually empty lunatics. It is an enervating force. We should resist it and embrace tea, the ancient drink of poets, philosophers and meditators." Ouf! That's quite an opinion!
Here's how I like my tea:
morning: a pot of earl grey or orange pekoe in my big mug:
afternoon: a pot of loose leaf jasmine with honey.
I don't agree with T'ien Yiheng. Why exclude those who appreciate silk pyjamas and rich food? I enjoy both, yet I love tea :)
ReplyDeleteLovely post. I love visiting your place and having a cup of tea in the blue curly mug (the one that matches the blue pot in the first picture) in the big red chair!
Incidentally though, I do also enjoy the occasional "joyless coffee," heehee! I guess I like to live wide ;)
DeleteHmmmm, tea. Well as everyone in Blighty know, tea makes everything better. It always amuses me, given how famous Blighty is for its tea drinkers, how much less refined we are about it than the rest of the world. Tea comes from a teabag. Preferable Tetley. To be drunk from any mug available. And woebetide the person that forgets to get more milk! xxx
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