Tea Time

I am becoming a tea-sip.
I should clarify for my Aggie brethren that by this I mean I have developed an affinity for sipping hot tea this winter. It keeps my throat soothed during each morning’s Radio show, and helps thaw my core from the damp and chill.

Warm beverages never appealed to me before.
Coffee’s aroma was a false pretext to its hot, bitter taste to my palate.
Hot tea was right up there with warm spit—just never developed an itch that needed scratching.

I would make a horrible Brit, I fear.
Their tea is taken seriously.
They call it Tea Time, and it’s a production, brother.
Fine porcelain cups, saucers, cream, sugar, and other dispensaries of condiments. For tea.
Even the British Navy works Tea Time into their official nautical schedule, between breakfast, lunch, and dinner shifts.

My evolution as a tea-sip has been a bit less sophisticated. Chinaware is supplanted by Styrofoam cups.
The hot water comes not from an ornate tea pot, but the red valve on the Sparklettes water dispenser in the kitchen. A plastic knife serves to mix the ingredients of a Lipton Green Tea bag and a healthy dollop of honey in the steaming liquid.

I generally replenish the hot water several times over the course of a morning’s show.

This winter has been particularly onerous to me—don’t know if it has been actually colder, or its effects are just more acutely felt in the second half-century of my life.
But on a chilly January morning, when the cold goes bone deep, and your muscles feel more reptilian than human, nothing is better for thee than hot tea.