Tea

Tea is a marvelous experience.  I was introduced to real tea by my adopted family, the Millers, about 10 years ago.  Tea is not just a drink - to be fully enjoyed it is an experience.  It is best shared with friends, preferably in a warm garden while wearing a hat.  :)  I love the tea cups, teapots, biscuits.  I love the conversation.  I love the gentle flavor and warmth of tea.  It is soothing to my mouth and comforting to my soul.  A few weeks ago, we checked out of the library a box called "Tea Parties" for Kale'a.  It has 8 books, a dvd and cd all geared toward tea parties.  After a few days, we had the cousins over for a tea party (forgot to take pictures) which was a lot of fun for all - they all behaved themselves properly and enjoyed the tea.  One book is about "princesses" who are your ordinary girls.  Now Kale'a asks for "princess" tea - which is half berry tea, half milk.  I sure enjoy having a daughter who appreciates the finer things in life. :)

Did you know there are blogs dedicated to tea?  I found a few with some poems and quotes:

If you are cold, tea will warm you;
If you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you;
If you are exhausted, it will calm you.
William Gladstone

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. ~C.S. Lewis

When the world is all at odds
And the mind is all at sea
Then cease the useless tedium
And brew a cup of tea.
There is magic in its fragrance,
There is solace in its taste;
And the laden moments vanish
Somehow into space.
The world becomes a lovely thing!
There’s beauty as you’ll see;
All because you briefly stopped
To brew a cup of tea.  ~ Anonymous

O TEA! so fresh, so delicately fragrant,
So never palling, pure and comfortable!
Truly thy birth-place is well named Celestial,
        For thou dost bear
A type of heaven graven in thy nature:
        I read it there.
 
Thou art no Siren luring us to danger:
Unlike thy sister of the sunny hillside,
The flaunty Vine, who pours her sparkling nectar
        Of heavenly smell,
While in the bowl there lurks invisible
        A smack of hell:
 
Pregnant of wild desire and frantic folly,
And fairy sounds that seem to chaunt our names
And welcome us to brilliant enterprise;
        While in the air
A painted beacon tempts us to the swamp
        Of sad Despair.
 
But Tea! thou innocent, that, like a child
Playing before us, mak’st the world look gay!
With thee the maid may trust her forward fancy;
        The matron sage
May safely count with thee her oft-told reckoning
        Of bygone age.
 
For thee the weakling tossing on his pillow
With nervous longing watches in the morning:
The tinkling cup strikes on his ear like music;
        Thy odorous breath
Wafted around redeems his flagging spirit,
        As if from death.
 
To me, who wander idly down life’s byways,
Thou art the spring of health and fantasy.
So morn and evening will I court thy presence,
        To pay my vow;
And fondly linger at thy pleasant fountain,
        As I do now.  ~ Richard Trott Fisher