{Personal} Tea Drinking During the Lockdown

“Find yourself a cup of tea,
the teapot is behind you.
Now tell me about
hundreds of things.”
― Saki, The Complete Saki

What is it with tea that makes it so calming?

I ask this because the husband has decided to drink tea like a proper tea connoisseur, all the way out on the bay window, perhaps to encourage our equally homebound neighbors to follow suit.

Taking up tea drinking is a good a habit as any. I was an avid tea drinker way back in college, although coffee started to become a necessity when I entered law school. Tea, however, is something worth going back to again and again.

It refreshes and there's a cleansing quality to it that makes eating canned tuna and frozen pork buns seem like you're negating the effects of that unhealthy diet because you're using tea to wash it all down.

And there's no better place to do it than in China, land of endless tea leaves and tea sets that you can buy online for a very affordable 69 RMB.

We still have some of the quality Pu-er tea balls that we bought from the Tang XiangTea Room a few months back, and the complimentary bag of black tea leaves that they graciously gave us. Each ball is good for 20 amazing pours, with the flavors becoming more and more intense with each pour (as opposed to our usual Lipton which starts to flat out by the third or fourth cup of hot water).

With lives and routines so disrupted because of this disease, taking up something new is like an affirmation that there's always a silver lining. Or that at the least, we can create a sense of normalcy no matter out-of-the-ordinary it all is outside.

And besides, looking out to the window is almost the same as being out. The sound of cars, the buses, and even the train bring a certain level of comfort that the city is clinging on to all the normalcy it can hold.