 | Let's do tea!? This phrase is the catalyst for a ritual I'm sure was started by ancient Nubian women looking to release dis-ease from the body. Tea can be any time, hot or chilled, solo or not, and it requires little preparation: at its most basic, hot water and dry herbs. I use tea time as an opportunity to teach manners, how to set a table (visual-spatial math art skills), conversation skills, fashion (art), |
properties of herbs (science), serving (pouring technique and order of presentation), and jazz and classical music. I have even gone so far as to do themes inspired by my sons: space tea party, super hero tea party, safari tea party, and tea parties based on books. Tea time is an integrative educational experience, but most of all, it is fun and relaxing.
| And what is more fun than tea time with the girls! When it comes to my girlfriends, tea time is all about exhaling as well as sharing woman wisdom. Sometimes it is a spontaneous girl-we- need-to-talk or I'm-just-dropping-by moment tucked away in the comfort of our homes, but other times it's an all out event at some posh venue. |  |
My obsession with tea time probably has something to do with my obsession with tea. My earliest memories involve my great grandmother shoving cow patty tea at whoever took ill, my grandmother gifting my sisters and me a delicately painted tea set that we shattered to pieces, and carrying a heavy glass pitcher of sun tea to the backyard for my mother.
 | I have always maintained a tea closet (yes, a closet) in which I house a tea for every illness or mood. As a mother, my tea closet has proved to be invaluable during late nights of fevers or teething irritability. Coming from a long line of tea pushers, it is no wonder my children have had tea from the time they were infants. We drink tea, bath in it, and use it as medicine. |
"If people drank a cup of tea every day, the pharmacists would starve." Chinese proverb
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