“Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.” (-Alice Walker)

Today it's pouring rain outside. It couldn't be a more dismal day, so I decided to start the morning with a hot cup of tea.

I woke up to the sounds of torrential rains, thunder and sirens, thinking how fortunate we are to be inside where it’s warm and safe and dry.

Our shelves are filled with various and sundry teas, and today it was Mango tea with honey in it for me.

Some nights, it’s chamomile or Sleepy Time. Some days there’s just no replacing Constant Comment, or Plum tea. Grandma always served us Tetley’s with oatmeal cookies, but I'm also quite fond of English Breakfast Tea or Earl Grey or Darjeeling...and of course, anything with cinnamon or orange is usually a good bet.

I’ve said before that my dad always brought back gifts for me of pretty teacups whenever he and my mom would travel anywhere. Aren't they beautiful?

For me, it really is almost like a picnic indoors to relax with a simmering, steaming cup of tea. I'll sometimes put a spoonful of jam into my hot tea, but I'd also just as soon put flowers in my cups. And I will often pour the used tea leaves over flowers outdoors to perk them up.

To sit snugly inside, where it’s warm and toasty, and peer out the windows at the dreary downpour outside, is simply bliss…Thank goodness TOMORROW is when I have to head out to Duke! I'm so fortunate I didn't have to go out into it today.

Tea is a cup of life. (-Unknown)

Lots of people put a lemon slice into a teacup but sometimes, I just like a slice of orange instead.

“Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage.” (-Catherine Douzel)

(Off to my indoor picnic, folks!)

“Remember the tea kettle—it is always up to its neck in hot water, yet it still sings.” (-unknown)

Joe’s a coffee drinker, I drink tea.

I wish I liked coffee. I really do. I want to.
I admit to loving the redolent scent of fresh coffee brewing, especially in the morning. Joe sometimes likes to grab a cuppa from Starbucks or any of the local coffee shops while we’re out, and he’ll sometimes really boil the canary and add a dash of almond flavoring. There have been days when I didn’t want to leave the car, just to sit and savour that fragrant aroma. I love the ritual of coffee and the camaraderie of people meeting for coffee.

But drink it? My brother Eddie always told me I was “a bit tightly wound,” and he’s pretty accurate there. The last thing my body needs is coffee, which brings me to such a frenetic state of anxiety that it’s criminal. Friends tell me it helps wake them up and get them going to have a cup of coffee, but it doesn’t have that effect on me. I believe them, and envy them that, but if I drink coffee, I’ll still feel tired, only then, I’ll feel tired as well as tense and agitated for hours.

A cup of tea won’t affect me that way. I find it soothing and comforting, and it doesn’t leave me feeling as if every nerve ending is exposed to the cruel world the way coffee does. I love the whole notion of brewing coffee and drinking the adult beverage that everyone else does, but I just can’t do it. So, have a cup, and enjoy it for me. For now, I'll take your word for it...vicariously.

“We had a kettle; we let it leak:
Our not repairing made it worse.
We haven’t had any tea for a week…
the bottom is out of the Universe.”

(-Rudyard Kipling)

Song for Susan

Song for Susan

Kettle whistles, “Habit now,”
Seems to sing its wistful tune
Sixty years, the ready sound
Sixty years, tea at noon…

(-sue)

My maternal grandparents were immigrants from Scotland, and they figured very prominently in my childhood. When I was young, I wrote a poem about Grandma Susan. Her inclination was to have a Tea Party every day of her life.

As a child, I loved visiting her, because she was an eccentric woman with artistic tendencies. She’d draw and write songs and poems, and entertained us for hours with the stories she made up, that literally lasted for weeks. They’d be continued on our next visit, while we longed to hear the end of her tales. During the winter, she’d bundle us up with her in a huge blanket, and sit with us on the rug, telling us we’d be like “the Babes in the Woods.” While we didn't really know who the babes in the woods were, when she said that, we knew we were about to be transported into her imaginary world of handsome lads and lovely lasses being swept away to balls, like something out of Jane Austen, through the machinations of the little old women who populated her stories.

But the thing I enjoyed the most with grandma was afternoon Tea. She baked every single day, and while the smells of oatmeal cookies and orange marmalade would emanate from her kitchen, she’d put a kettle on for a spot of tea. Her cups and saucers were lovely china, and she had utensils that had real ivory handles on them. The aromas and warm steam coming up from the cups are images and rituals I will always associate with her. She made me a tea lover for life.

"A Proper Tea is much nicer than a Very Nearly Tea, which is one you forget about afterwords." (-AA Milne)