Time For Tea

When you are raised in a culture of hot tea-drinkers, from the time you are old enough to enjoy a  milked-down version in your baby bottle, through infancy and youth and young adulthood, continuing throughout your life into senior days, you rarely pay any attention to your daily habits until someone points them out.

The first thing that most English people do when people stop by the house, is to put the kettle on. Tea mostly, or coffee if you prefer, it's embedded in our DNA.
We were watching re-runs of Downton Abbey today, I couldn't help but smile as I watched the offer of "tea ?" being suggested at every twist and turn. 

When a visitor drops by, when good news is received, after bad news is received, when a helping hand is needed, or a little encouragement is welcomed.

 

Tea drinking in many cultures is the centuries-old tradition and universal language of civility, and social nurturing, a little more partaking these days would be a good thing.

"THE CUP FOR ME.

"Let others sing the praise of wine,

Let others deem its joys divine,

Its fleeting bliss shall ne'er be mine,

Give me a cup of tea!

The cup that soothes each aching pain,

Restores the sick to health again,

Steals not from heart, steals not from brain,

A friend when others flee.

"When sorrow frowns, what power can cheer,

Or chase away the falling tear

Without the vile effects of beer,

Like Pekoe or Bohea?

What makes the old man young and strong,

Like Hyson, Congou, or Souchong,

Which leave the burthen of his song

A welcome cup of tea.

"Then hail the grave Celestial band,

With planning mind, and planting hand,

And let us bless that golden land

So far across the sea;

Whose hills and vales give fertile birth

To that fair shrub of priceless worth,

Which yields each son of mother earth

A fragrant cup of tea."

Time For Tea

 

A Cup of Tea

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 then laden moments vanish
Somehow into space.

And the world becomes a lovely thing!
There's beauty as you'll see;
All because you briefly stopped
To brew a cup of tea.

 

J. Jonker, Amsterdam, c.1670

 

Sunday Serenity

We are enjoying a lovely serene Sunday.

The weather is simply gorgeous.

 Low humidity but ample sunshine, with white fluffy clouds billowing overhead.

I enjoyed my visit with a dear old friend earlier this weekend, we giggled like school girls, and drank far too many pots of tea.

Days such as these are priceless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

"Peace is when time doesn't matter as it passes by."

  Maria Schell (1926 -2005)   Austrian actress

 

 

  

 

 

Tea Time

A Cup of Tea

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 then laden moments vanish
Somehow into space.

And the world becomes a lovely thing!
There's beauty as you'll see;
All because you briefly stopped
To brew a cup of tea.

J. Jonker, Amsterdam,

Time For Tea

A dear longtime English friend stopped by for a visit yesterday, her timing couldn't have been better.
You know how it is, some days you'd just like to pull the bed-covers over your head, and let the world pass you by..........
She came bearing gifts, a lovely wool shawl, and a box of Ty-phoo tea, I'll save the shawl for winter, we both indulged in the tea-drinking.

There is something to be treasured about the ease of spending time with an old friend.

Of being in the company of someone who knows you inside and out, and you them, in the way that just seems to happen, when months turn into years, and years turn into a lifetime.

It’s like a massage for the soul. You have no idea how much tension you’re carrying around until you’re in an environment so comfortable that it all drains away.

A Cup of Tea

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 then laden moments vanish
Somehow into space.

And the world becomes a lovely thing!
There's beauty as you'll see;
All because you briefly stopped
To brew a cup of tea.

J. Jonker, Amsterdam, c.1670

Daily Ritual

Time to change the teapot from the Summer Pansies back to the Blue Willow design.
I confess to being a tea addict, it's the first thing that passes my lips in a morning and the last thing at night, even going so far as taking a cuppa to bed with me.

I got the addiction honestly, and put it down to all those times we English children were offered milky tea in our bottles as we were growing up.
Yes, they start us at an early age.

Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company.

~Author Unknown