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Tea and Friendship

My friend, Teresa, often sends things to brighten my day. After an especially taxing week, I opened the mailbox to find this beautiful book waiting inside. Along with quotes, poems, and tea lore, The Art of Tea and Friendship includes charming paintings by the author, Sandy Lynam Clough.

J.R. began drinking hot tea in place of coffee nineteen years ago. He asked me time and time again to just try it because he wanted us to enjoy it together. I tried it once, and didn’t care for it. He continued to drink hot tea (alone) from a Stanley thermos without the pomp and pageantry that I had always associated with drinking tea. No herbal or perfumed teas drunk from small china cups with carved sugar lumps or cream. No, it was straight, black, hot tea poured from a Stanley thermos. The thermos was well worn from being lugged through recycling yards, demolition jobs, on airplanes, in hotels, and then back home again to be parked beside his office desk or his favorite recliner.



About three years ago, the “a-ha” light turned on in my head. I realized that the man of my dreams was not asking me just to try to like hot tea, but to spend precious time connecting with him during this tea time. (Wouldn’t Debi Pearl have a field day with that one?) Immediately, I began tasting various teas and found a favorite which quickly became my fella’s favorite too. Our mornings now began with Scottish Breakfast Tea nicely poured from a teapot with the manly motif of an English hunting scene.



I must admit that my day is now not complete without a full half gallon of good steaming hot black tea drunk cup by cup with cream and honey. But, do you know what? My preferred way to drink tea is just how I first saw him partake of it - poured straight from his Stanley work thermos into a big mug that I can wrap my hands around….as I wrap my heart around his.

When I received The Art of Tea and Friendship, I was reminded of a morning two months ago when J.R. was out of town and before our morning phone call, he texted me a picture of his empty breakfast plate and drink. My text back was the picture below. My cup of tea, the Bible opened to the page I had been reading, and his empty recliner. He knew that I was saying, “My tea time is not complete without you.”



There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea. Bernard-Paul Heroux