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Lately I have been armchair-traveling around the world, planning tea vacations. Tea vacations? you say. The fact surprised me, too, but given second thought it is a perfect idea—a vacation for people who love to travel and love to drink tea. At the moment, I prefer the comfort of my armchair, tea in hand, and virtual travel, without all the unpleasant details, such as going through customs and squeezing onto airplanes.
It all began with my recent fondness for Devonshire Tea—I’m speaking of the Devonshire Tea Company, a fairly new tea merchant located in the county of Plymouth, England. The Devonshire Tea Company bills their tea as: “the taste of Devon from the first sip right through to the very last.” Whatever the taste of Devon is, I like it! (see a review here.)
While sipping Devonshire Tea and traveling the county Devon in my armchair, I discovered that ‘Devonshire tea’ is also a traditional term for a way of serving afternoon tea. Another wording is ‘cream tea’. It is, very simply, tea served with an abundance of warm scones or slices of bread heaped thick with clotted cream and jam. (I am told I can even get gluten-free scones in England!)
Devon is also the home of one of my favorite writers, the famous Agatha Christie. I pulled at random seven of Dame Agatha’s books off my shelf. In five of them, the characters are drinking tea within the first two pages. In the first paragraph of one of my favorites, Nemesis, Miss Jane Marple is drinking tea and reading the paper. The mystery in At Bertram’s Hotel is not all that compelling, but I was captivated by the old hotel, where everyone comes for the afternoon teas, described as “…the best Indian, Ceylon, Darjeeling, Lapsang…” It is quite evident that Dame Agatha loved her tea.
Agatha Christie
A little known fact is that Agatha Christie was half American through her father, Frederick Alvah Miller. This explains her clearly drawn American characters. She was born in Torquay, a seaside resort in Devon, known as the English Riviera. She used the villages, hotels, and homes of the area in many of her mystery novels.
Ashfield, the home of her birthplace is now gone, but Greenway, the villa she and her husband purchased later, remains and is open to the public. There are gardens at Greenway, a gift shop that sells Devonshire Tea, and a café that serves afternoon tea.
I imagine sitting there at Greenway, enjoying Devonshire Tea served at Devonshire tea in Devonshire, and discussing novels with the spirit of Agatha Christie.
Visit CurtissAnn’s Web site to learn about her wonderful fiction.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
It started out as a simple perplexity. Instead of the printer ink I ordered from an online store, I received a postcard from UPS telling me that they could not find my address. This brought up all manner of questions: UPS delivers to my home all the time. Now they can’t find me? My address was on the postcard, delivered by United States Postal Service—what was the UPS problem?
Then I noted that the postcard had been sent to my street address, with an “S” added. “– Drive S.” Did that have something to do with the non-delivery?
No matter–it was only printer ink and not worth the trouble to investigate, nor to drive all the way to UPS to pick up the package, as the postcard instructed. I cancelled the order, got a refund, and chalked it up to a fluke.
Until the next week, when the same thing happened with my order of tea.
Now, we’re talking tea here. The very elixir of life. At least of my life. I was not happy when I realized my order was late, tracked it, and discovered a trouble with delivery. What did they mean they could not find me? How many deliveries had they made to my house? It was the S on the end of my street address, again. UPS could find no such address. “The S is a mistake,” I told the UPS representative on the phone. “Just knock it off and deliver my tea.” To which she says, “We aren’t authorized to do that. You’ll have to pick it up, or call the supplier to correct the address.”
Well, bless her heart, and those of you from the South know what I mean. The UPS depot is some thirty miles from my house, or I would have thrown principle aside and driven right up there. I called the supplier, and I did my best to be calm. I requested delivery that very day. The sweet young woman from the online tea company looked into it. She then reported that she could have UPS deliver that day, for an extra $10 charge. No, I did not think I would pay, because I did not put the S on my address in the first place. She thought I must have, and, well, words were exchanged. The young woman consulted someone and came back with, “Oh, I see you did not put the S. It must have been added when the address was verified.”
Verified? With who? She was vague on the matter. She would, however, attempt to get my order delivered that day. She, wise woman, understood we were speaking of tea.
Unfortunately, as it turned out UPS did not understand. I never did get the order. I left town the following day, and when I returned, I discovered the tea order had been returned to the company. I telephoned, spoke to a supervisor, renewed the order, and they kindly sent it Express Mail United States Postal Service, at no extra charge. Oh, happy girl to open the box and see the Yorkshire Gold! The Taylors of Harrogate Afternoon Darjeeling! The Devonshire Tea!
I recently ordered again. I decided to request shipment by USPS. Good choice, because, yes, when the box arrived, there on the address label was that stupid S again. Thankfully the United States Postal Service pays no attention. They not only know their towns and streets, but they can be trusted to get the tea through.
Check out CurtissAnnMatlock.com for information on her novels.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
I first learned of rooibos tea—sometimes called red bush tea—in reading the novel The Ladies No.1 Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith. It is the first novel of a series set in Botswana, South Africa; you may have seen the HBO movie by the same name. The heroine of the novel, one of my very all-time favorite heroines, wise Precious Ramotswe, favors red bush tea. She often ponders and philosophizes about the matters of men and women and life as she drinks her tea. By the time I finished reading the novel some ten years ago, I absolutely had to go out and find me some red bush tea.
I instantly formed a liking for the tea made from the South African red bush plant. Which, of course, makes it really a tisane, but I agree with my mother, who says, “Tisane…it just doesn’t have so pleasant a ring, does it?” Red bush tea is the only non-tea tea that I really and truly like. It is the deep red-brown of genuine orange pekoe, and has a sort of clear-sky-hot-afternoon-comfort taste. I have tried a number of different brands, most are organic, and they all seemed good, until I recently tried Intaba. I find the Intaba brand South African Rooibos Tea richer tasting than any brand previously tried.
The days are really hot and sultry now where I live in south Alabama, and I frequently enjoy the refreshment of a cold glass of rooibos tea. For a 1-quart pitcher made CurtissAnn’s way: Brew 4 Intaba Rooibos single tea bags in 2 cups boiling water for five to six minutes. Put in the pitcher 1/4 cup sugar, or however much makes you happy, and a generous slice of fresh lemon—half inch at least. Add the hot brewed rooibos to the pitcher and mix well. Then fill the rest of the pitcher with ice and/or cold water. Stir. Pour over ice, sit on the shady porch in front of a fan, and relax.
When CurtissAnn isn’t relaxing on the front porch with a tall glass of cold rooibos, she spends her time writing novels! Visit her Web site, CurtissAnnMatlock.com, to learn more!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Compiled by Arthur Gray and first published in 1903, The Little Tea Book is a most delightful little book of history, information, and odes to the precious brew. In the introduction, Mr. Gray tells us: “A glance through this book will show that the spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort, and refinement.”
We tea drinkers know that truth from experience. My own supposition is that everyone seeks those three attributes, one way or another, in a world very often scant of them. Many of us have found the priceless attributes while drinking tea, so we have placed them there. Each time we sit down for a cup, we steep ourselves in peace, comfort, and refinement. (You can see that Mr. Gray’s book was having an effect on my imagination.)
In his Little Tea Book, Mr. Gray begins the history of tea with a fable about tea being discovered by a high priest of India, whom he terms a Darma (his spelling), who went to China to teach the ‘way of happiness’. While practicing his holy habit of staying awake to meditate and pray, the Darma unfortunately fell asleep. This slip-up caused him to become so enraged (anger rather than sleep apparently being acceptable to him) as to pluck off his eyelids and throw them on the ground. The following morning, strange shrubs flourished from where he had dropped the eyelids. He munched leaves from the shrub, the first tea plants, and found himself lifted to mental and spiritual heights. Of course the holy man taught the benefits of the bushes to his disciples, and the use of tea began.
Dating the use of tea in Great Britain to the mid-1600s, Mr. Gray cites an advertisement in the Mercurius Politicius, dated September 1658: “That excellent and by all Physitians approved China drink, called by the Chineans, Tcha, by other nations, Tay, or Tea, is sold at the Sultana’s Head, a Coppee House, in Sweetings Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London.” Note the ‘by all Physitians approved.” From the earliest, the way to sell something was to expound on the health properties.
These instructions on brewing tea are passed along from the ancient Emperor Kien Lung, who wrote to his children: “Set a tea-pot over a slow fire; fill it with cold water; boil it long enough to turn a lobster red; pour it on the quantity of tea in a porcelain vessel; allow it to remain on the leaves until the vapor evaporates, then sip it slowly, and all your sorrows will follow.” We dedicated tea drinkers can attest to this truth.
Then there is this bit of wit: “John Milton knew the delights of tea. He drank coffee during the composition of Paradise Lost, and tea during the building of Paradise Regained.”
I suggest waiting to read The Little Tea Book when you are ready for tea time, because in the reading, you will be filled with the desire to drink vast quantities of the stuff. But I do not recommend the ancient recipe for brewing tea as found on page 15. It involves egg yolks. Ewewww…
You can find for free The Little Tea Book at Project Gutenberg.
CurtissAnn write novels. Stop by her site, CurtissAnnMatlock.com to learn more.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
I am one of those people who cannot survive without the pleasure of a good cup of tea. This attitude on my part can make traveling the highways and by-ways of average America, as well as visiting most of my coffee-drinking friends and relatives, something of a trick.
For example, whenever we start out early mornings on a driving trip, my dear husband pulls into his favorite convenience store and grabs a cup of coffee. He’s not particular, just so long as it is coffee. The best I have ever found at any convenience store is a bag of some nameless tea plopped into a Styrofoam cup, with what is usually lukewarm water poured over it. Just thinking of it is an assault on my sensibilities. Call me persnickety (truth) but I have never found tea, hot or cold, in a foam cup inviting—well, except for one time at the Memphis airport when I was absolutely desperate and managed a good sit-down-with-tea after an ordeal.
When I travel anywhere, I pretty much take every comfort from home, because I would just as soon not leave home in the first place. This time I am giving myself the treat of traveling light with no worries and favorite tea.
Our trip is only a day’s journey up the highway that I will start by good morning tea enjoyed with quiet time on the porch. I never care to bother with bringing tea with me, and besides, I sleep the first two hundred miles.
This will be a short four or five days’ stay with relatives, coffee-drinkers who have grown used to my persnickety tea ways. I will manage happily with tea bags–Taylors of Harrogate Afternoon Darjeeling and PG Tips for the pyramid tea bag style, as well as for when I want strength and variety. The differing tea bag styles make it easy to pack them together in a single small glass jar. I also carry along a gallon of distilled water, because I already know that I don’t care for the water where we are going. (Just call me Mr. Monk.) Very often I will carry my traveling ceramic cup, wrapped in a red-checked cotton napkin, simply because a cloth napkin cheers me, and my electric kettle, but all of those things await where I am going this trip.
There, I’m set. I’m already imagining a nice afternoon cup of tea upon our arrival and a pleasant chat.
CurtissAnn writes novels. Learn more on her site, CurtissAnnMatlock.com.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
I have in the past few years been enjoying widening my tea horizons. But I continue, like an old lover, to return time and again to the Taylors of Harrogate brand.
Taylors of Harrogate is one of Britain’s, and the world’s, leading merchants of tea, not surprising since they have been blending and selling it for almost 125 years. Founded by Charles Taylor, the company still bills itself as independently family owned, which is the reason for the s without the apostrophe on the end of Taylors. I imagine many Taylors down through the decades, buying and blending tea with great concentration. It gives one a bit of envy.
I first encountered the company by their Yorkshire Tea, their proprietary blend. There are five—one being Yorkshire Tea for Hard Water, the idea that set Charles Taylor in business in the first place. It was reported in 2003 that nine million cups of Taylors’ Yorkshire Tea were drunk each day in Britain.
Give yourself a treat and visit the delightful Yorkshire Tea site to see their offerings, as well as the cute little brewing teapot. There is also Yorkshire Tea cakes and biscuits. Little Shorties shortbread biscuits are in the shape of a T. Unfortunately they do not have any gluten-free tea cakes, however, I give them high marks for posting allergen information. My favorite thing on the site is the down-loadable sign that reads: “Sorry, I’m having a cup of tea.”
Taylors of Harrogate tea does not stop there. You can see the full range at their main company site. A sampling available: Assam estate tea, Afternoon Darjeeling (a staple in my house), English Breakfast. Loose tea and bagged, the list is long.
Over their 125 year history, Taylors of Harrogate grew and diversified. They entered the coffee trade, and, in the 1960s, they joined with the famous Betty’s Café and Tea Rooms to become officially the corporation of Bettys and Taylors. In 2000, Bettys and Taylors was named to the United Kingdom’s first list of Britain’s Best Companies to Work For and also won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Sustainable Development. In 2004, the Taylors of Harrogate side of the company became the first to import tea from China, blend and package it, and sell it back to the Chinese market.
These people know tea. And all this talk about it sends me off to have a cup of Yorkshire. I just need me one of those signs.
If you thought this blog post was great, read one of CurtissAnn’s novels. Visit her site, CurtissAnnMatlock.com, to learn more.
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
As all good things, my tea cake came out of a moment of desperation.
Those of us special tea drinkers with celiac disease or gluten intolerance (termed coeliac disease in Britain) cannot simply run down to the corner bakery for something to go with our cuppa, or grab a delectable fresh package off the shelf. Well, actually, many of us in New York and Chicago and a few other fortunate large cities with great gluten-free bakeries can do that. But for the vast majority of us living out in small-town America, pickings are as slim as really good tea. We must settle for scarce variety locally, (often old and not starting out as anything good anyway), in packages on shelves or in freezer cases of small health food stores, provided we even have a health food store within a comfortable driving distance. We can order a wide range of cookies and cakes for mail delivery, and mostly have it all come squished and broken, or we can bake it from scratch, provided we have the time and ability to cook.
Thus it was that one day I was facing my afternoon teatime with what I often have—gluten free toast and jam—when I happened to be at the Winn-Dixie and saw the box of Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake mix on the shelf. Yes, dear tea-drinkers, Betty Crocker is making gluten-free mixes!
I admit that a plain vanilla box cake does not customarily serve as a tea cake. However, a few simple alterations resulted in a delicious and very easy-to-make tea cake.
- 1 box Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake mix
- 2/3 cup orange juice, instead of water
- 1/2 cup butter, or substitute with Earth Balance Buttery Spread, softened
- 1 teaspoon dried lemon peel
- 3 eggs
- Approximately 1/3 cup sliced almonds
- Cinnamon-sugar to taste
- Note: I omitted the vanilla
Using the above substitutions, mix according to package directions. Pour batter into a greased baking pan. Scatter the sliced almonds across the top of the batter and sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar. Bake according to directions.
I brewed a pot of Ntingwe Kwazulu tea, sat blissfully on the porch, and enjoyed, well, two pieces of fresh and scrumptious tea cake, courtesy of dear Betty.
Just a note ~ the Betty Crocker mix, and others on the market, are based on rice flour, which has long been used to produce delicate textured cakes. Even wheat-eaters will enjoy them.
Aside from making delicious cakes and steaming pots of tea, CurtissAnn also writes novels. Visit her Web site, CurtissAnnMatlock.com, to learn more!!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Let me say instantly, for those who like to get to the point: I really like Ntingwe Kwazulu tea from Taylors of Harrogate and recommend it highly. The blurb on the package says: “This tea has a fresh, brisk flavor and a bright liquor.” I say yes to the fresh and bright liquor, however I found the taste more deep and smooth, with absolutely no bitterness, even when I brewed it longer than the required 4–5 minutes. The taste reminds me of sitting in the patterned shadows beneath tall cypress trees of a swampy river on a hot spring afternoon. I could sit there forever.
That said, you might like to know a bit more about who is doing the recommending and the tea itself.
I come at this tea-choosing business from the eye of a seasoned woman who wants, quite simply, a good cup of tea that will not break the bank. I prefer black tea, straight and pure, enjoying sweetener and lemon on rare occasions, milk or flavorings rarer still. I want to be able to easily purchase the tea. I can be mildly influenced by tins and fancy packaging, but I have learned the truth of the old saying, “One man’s tea is another’s poison.” It really is opinion, and opinions, to put it politely, are a penny a dozen in this modern world of social media.
The Ntingwe Kwazulu tea is grown in Kwazulu Natal province of South Africa, a land often called the garden province, where the tea industry has been on the rise for the past ten years. The Ntingwe estate tea has been called, “One of the five finest teas in the world,” but from what I was able to discover, this claim was first made by the buyer from Taylors and Harrogate, who certainly has a vested interest, then picked up and used for promotion all over the place. Still, the tea has taken off in popularity in Britain and around the world, so many people share a favorable opinion of it.
Ntingwe also met a supreme and unexpected personal test. I had just come in from an hour of running around a play-park with my three year old grandson, when I found the delivery of my tea on my front porch. I was exhausted and expected dear grandson to at least have his energy trimmed and be ready to play with Thomas the Train long enough for me to enjoy a sit-down and cuppa of the new tea.
I eagerly opened the package, and was met by what appeared to be grounds. It is that fine. This caused my heart to sink. But keeping an open mind, I brewed a mug full, too tired to go for my little pot.
I was just inspecting the lovely color—rich and tending to red—when I heard, “Nana…what’cha doin’? Come play train…put my track back to-geth-er.”
Thinking I surely had chosen a poor time for tea tasting, I lifted the cup and took a sip. My eyes flew wide. I took another sip and let the tea linger on my tongue. I looked at my dear grandson looking back up at me, and grinned.
I finished the tea while answering a dozen questions and demands of a small boy, which continued as I brewed another cup in my small pot. Later, I savored an after dinner cup sweetened with a bit of honey. I found the tea both relaxing and reviving to keep me going until said small boy went home.
Ntingwe Kwazulu tea passed a very unique and important test, and for me, it is one of the five finest teas of the world.
It may be hard to pronounce the name “Ntingwe Kwazulu,” but it’s certainly not hard to enjoy one of CurtissAnn’s novels! Visit her site, CurtissAnnMatlock.com, to learn more!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
I decided mid-morning to give lessons in enjoying teatime to my three-year-old grandson. I had found no advice to aid me in this endeavor—I did actually look around on the web. But all of the tea blogs I read spoke of the glories of adults sharing tea, or the quiet contemplative moments over tea, or the essentials of types and brewing methods. I found nothing that mentioned children and tea.
This might have been my first lesson.
Let me be clear. It was not my intention to have my little one drinking tea, so much as to introduce the idea of savoring gracious living. Besides, I have been on a quest to find a good gluten-free sweet cake to go with tea. Baking the blueberry muffin recipe out of Cooking Free by Carol Fenster seemed a wonderful teaching opportunity.
First we had to mix gluten-free flours. Tapioca flour is especially light. It swirls in the air like a dust cloud, covering anything within three feet, especially when helped along by little three-year-old hands stirring with a wire whisk.
Our conversation went something like this.
“Ooooh, cake!”
“We’re goin’ to have muffins for teatime. Get your stool. Watch my toes!”
“Some of this?”
“Yes…let Nana. Well, Nana will clean it.
“My turn!”
“Yes…let me…”
“I can do it my-self.”
“Let Nana help you pour…oops, okay.”
“What’s ‘that?”
“Blueberries…here. Do you like them?”
“Uh-huh! I want more.”
“Well, here just a couple. Gotta save the rest.”
“I’m gonna go play train.”
“No, wait! You have blueberry…Oh, go ahead.”
The gluten-free muffins turned out delicious, the perfect accompaniment for tea and a tired Nana. I sunk down in a chair at the table with Taylors of Harrogate Ceylon, in a teabag, right in the cup held with both hands gratefully beneath my nose.
Later, after the muffins were shared and I was on my second cup of tea and deep breathing, I turned and saw this:
When CurtissAnn isn’t tea blogging, she’s writing great novels! Stop by her site, CurtissAnnMatlock.com, to learn more!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
For the past year I have grown to favor Ceylon Tea, and most recently the loose leaves from the Lover’s Leap Estate. The leaves that made the hot tea in my cup near at hand have been grown on moist mountainous land more than halfway around the world from me on the small island nation of what is officially called the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. A small dot off the south coast of India, this tiny country was once known as Ceylon, then and still a major producer of the world’s tea.
My tea comes from plants grown in rolling fields and picked by women just like myself. Tea pluckers they are called; women from their teens into their seventies. In the idyllic promotional photographs, their brightly colored clothes look like flower blossoms dotting the vibrant green fields. They carry baskets on their backs. A good tea plucker can pick as much as 30 kilo grams of tea leaves in a day. My life may be far different than these women, but I am not unfamiliar with such work. I am reminded of how cotton used to be picked here in the south. My own mother-in-law tells of going into a field at the age of eight with a bag to pick cotton.
The tea I drink comes from women who spend all day on a steep hillside, often in the rain, barefoot, where there are snakes and leeches. It rains a lot where I live, so I can easily imagine the scene. According to a 2005 article at BBC.com, the women’s daily wage is about the same as the cost of a bag of rice. And in their culture, the wages are paid to their husband or father, not directly to them. Their homes are mostly ones built nearly a hundred years ago during British occupation and without even the basic running water.
I think of the women—like myself, wives, mothers, grandmothers, daughters, aunts, sisters–rising early to feed their families and get them off to school and work, before themselves going to spend the day in the tea fields on the steep hillsides. I think of their tired arms and weary backs, but of their gossip and laughter, too, which is always a part of life, no matter the hardship.
Do they realize what they give the world?
“Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.” ~William Gladstone, British Prime Minister.
If the women did not work, the world would not have tea. A contrast indeed.
World Vision International, Christian Aid, and the Ethical Tea Partnership are organizations working to bring change in the lives of these women, but, like all change, it does come slowly.
I might be tempted to feel guilty for drinking and enjoying the tea that has become so necessary to my own life, maybe even to give it up. But doing so would not help, and strikes me as unappreciative of the lives of these honorable women.
Instead, I choose to celebrate the gift these women give, and to honor them by drinking their tea. I can make my own voice known in their support. I will remember, too, that for them to improve, the price of my tea will increase.
I lift my cup of precious Ceylon tea to these women. I salute them, thank them, and offer prayers for change on their behalf. I doubt I will never see my tea as ordinary again.
CurtissAnn is the author of several novels. To learn more, visit her site, CurtissAnnMatlock.com!
© Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog, 2009-2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or the blog’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Online Stores, Inc., and The English Tea Store Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
