“A cup of tea makes everything better.”

I love tea. No really—I love, love, love tea.

I’m a tea-aholic, and always have been. I’m British—it’s installed in us from birth to drink as many cups as we can in a day.

As soon as a British home is entered, the call of “put the kettle on” is sung out. Sipped with an “ahh,” tea, seemingly, has a way of relieving all of life’s woes. That blanket of comfort to start my day, one that wakes me up and makes the difference between a good day and a bad one.

When learning mindfulness, my first practice of being in the present was making my morning cup of tea, focusing on that moment and that moment only. Filling the kettle, choosing the tea, pouring the cup, and savouring the colours, sights and sounds of the process. Then, settling down and concentrating on the feeling of lifting the cup to my lips, the taste of the hot liquid flowing through my body, my veins and reaching my mind.

“Life is like a cup of tea—it’s all about how you make it.”

There really is an art in making the perfect cup. The tea has to be of a good quality, the water has to be boiled to the right temperature and it needs to be brewed to perfection. I was recently extremely lucky to have a private tour of a tea plantation in India, where I felt a huge amount of emotion while seeing the process that goes into producing this black dust into a golden nectar. The cutting in the fields, to the drying and roasting, to the grading and the taste quality controls before being exported around the world into our homes. It is experiences like these that make life—the process and love that we put into what we do takes consideration, just like a good cup of brew.

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

My happy place in this world is curling up with a book and a cup of tea and spending quality me time. Escaping the world, curling my hands round the cup and mindfully promoting the sincerity and simplicity of the moment. It is in these moments, no matter how small, that teach us to be content with life. Tea helps us to share that contentment with others as well, making life calmer.

In the true British sense, this is all done over a “good old cuppa.”

Relephant:

Sitting with Vulnerability: Why I Take my “Raw” Self out for Tea.

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Author: Justine O’Connell

Apprentice Editor: Katerina Kan; Editor: Travis May

Image: Author Photo