8 Things Only Tea Lovers Understand

The Devotea’s List Week: Number 2

If you love tea, you have no doubt discovered some joys that non-tea drinkers just don’t get. Here’s a list that will have you nodding your head.

Waiting is a joy. The idea that the one to five minutes that it takes you to brew your favourite is somehow ‘wasted time’ is a nonsense. Savour the aroma, clink the cups, rustle about in the biscuit tin/cookie jar. Make a pyramid of sugar cubes.

Or just think. These little spaces between pouring the water and drinking the tea are golden moments to think and reflect.

You can dress for tea. Lavazza Coffee adverts may feature Al Pacino dressed like a homeless drifter for that caffeine-buzz street cred, but you can dress up for tea.

If you like. It’s not compulsory, but you can. And in virtually anything.

Tea has specific companions. There are specific accompaniments to tea. Tea Cake. Crumpets. Scones. Having tea effectively gives you permission to scoff one or more dainty edibles. The whole concept of “Morning Tea” or “Afternoon Tea” encompasses food.

Tea brings us closer. It is quite difficult to keep an argument going when the tea comes out.

Try it sometime. It’s a circuit breaker.

Tea offers you familiarity. If you’re in a strange city, or meeting with people you’ve never met, that sip of a tea you’ve always loved or a new one that impresses you helps you to relax. Aaaahhhhh!

Tea makes you feel better. You all know it does. Settle your nerves, or a fluttery stomach. Overcome lack of sleep or too much sleep. The opposite is also true: having no tea makes you feel worse.

Tea has changed the world. It doesn’t matter which bit of history you are interested in, over the last thousand years or more, you’ll find tea in there. Having a profound effect. China. England. Japan. India. Not always for the better, but it has changed whole civilisations.

And some of the world’s biggest trouble spots are those with little or no tea. Co-incidence? I doubt it.

Tea connects us. All over the world, people are reading this. Tall, short, rich or not so rich, religious or atheist, gay, straight or something else, whatever skin colour you have, town you live in or hat you choose to wear, everyone reading this is connected by tea. Most of the people I call friends are people I have met through tea.

Tea is community.

And there you have it. A simple list, feel free to add a few of your own in the comments.

*This is List Two of “Lord Devotea’s List Week” a spectacular week of lists that will be spread over the Beasts of Brewdom and Lord Devotea’s Tea Spouts blog.