Tea Drinking

Tea drinking is a fairly ubiquitous activity throughout the world and in lots of our lives. This blog isn't going to be about tea, specifically, but it seemed like a good theme for the story of my day-to-day life.

Tea can be a quick cup grabbed in the middle of a night shift; half of it drunk when it is too hot, and the rest when it is tepid after you've dealt with whatever drama has occurred. It can be drunk from tiny china cups with little cakes and sandwiches, or consumed by the gallon when with friends or family (especially my family). Tea can be more than just a drink, it's a very British thing to offer a cup of tea in times of crisis when you don't really know what to do or say. It's almost as if making a cup of tea when everything has just fallen apart is a way to introduce a bit of normality and security that life does still exist and that you can talk about what is happening.

Tea can be the little bit of home when you are, or feel like you are, a million miles from it. It can also be part of exploring a new place: Tibetan yak-butter tea with orange-clad Buddhist monks, Morrocan mint tea in a busy souk, hibiscus tea on an overcrowded ward in a Sudanese hospital, a pint-mug in a warm Llanberis cafe, or Nepali chai provided by a random child in a Kathmandu shop. Tea has its place in many different cultures, and their respective histories.

So this blog is going to be about the thoughts of one particular tea drinker, many of them will be mundane english breakfast thoughts, but who knows where my tea drinking might take me.