Each day, my journal gives me a deep, blank stare. More and more, I find myself giving it an equally blank stare back before I close it shut.
The most difficult part of anything is beginning. So in this new digital, open-book, bare-skinned version of my daily musings, I humbly offer tea advice to you, my Inquisitive Reader. This is my way of sharing what I learn while also bringing a purpose to my writing beyond lonely self-reflection. As a student of tea myself, I cannot truly offer anything beyond what I experience. So I leave it up to you, Inquisitive Reader, to develop your own interpretation of my wanton thoughts on tea. You have found yourself here after trawling through a vast interconnected webwork of pop-ups and listicles of feline shenanigans. So what is it that brings us together at our virtual tea table, insatiably thirsty? What is tea?
Tea transcends plant and beverage as a definition. Tea is the relationship between tea maker and tea drinker, a silent meditative space created to contemplate the self. It is a lifestyle: a way of being. It is the warm glow of an inn off in the distance after traveling through drizzled woods. It is what draws us back to our blanket cove on chilly mornings. It is a deer nudging its newborn fawn along soft pillows after the first snowfall. It is the first rays of sunshine peeking through listless clouds after long, raincast days. It is the still night air cleansing the chest after long hours spent trying to define the infinite in a leaf.
Tea is, despite my incessantly rabid descriptions, simply a drink.
It is enjoyed and loved. I just want to continue the tradition of passion and love behind it. The tradition isn’t complete without you, dear Reader. For that, I thank you, welcome you, and wish you endless days filled with good tea and equally good company.
Cheers