Almost Everything Stops for Tea

Everything stops for tea in my house.

Well almost everything.

If made right it is refreshing and reviving,

providing a sense of balance to my life.

It is a well loved daily ritual

that I could never do without.

With due diligence and attention,

I carefully pour it out.

The blend chosen has much importance.

Each in its own sweet way

has the power to overwhelm me

It won't matter what you say.

I can not break the spell,

woven sitting in my garden

which makes me feel so well.

As I said everything stops for tea in my house

and that most definitely includes me!!!

Amber Allen

All rights reserved.

Copyright 17 December 2011

This poem was inspired by the drawing which I found on Flickr. The artist Frits Ahlefeldt has published a large number of cartoon type drawings all of are available free to use under a Creative Commons license provided you credit hikingartist.com somewhere.

I really enjoyed looking at his work on Flickr and on his website so if you have a few minutes to spare you might like to check him out. You might even be able to find some pictures that you can use too.

1. "Tea is drunk to forget the din of the world." ~ T'ien Yiheng.
2. "A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt.
3. "Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude and the pleasures of company." ~ Anonymous.
4. "Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage." ~ Catherine Douzel.
5. "There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea. " ~ Bernard-Paul Heroux.
6. "Come and share a pot of tea. My home is warm and my friendship’s free." ~ Emilie Barnes, author of The Twelve Teas of Friendship.
7. "If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you." ~ Gladstone, 1865.
8. "Tea is a cup of life." ~ Anonymous.
9. "The mere chink of cups and saucers tunes the mind to happy repose." ~ George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft.
10. "If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty." ~ Japanese Proverb.
11. "Tea is liquid wisdom." ~ Anonymous.
12. "Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future." ~ Thich Nat Hahn.
13. "Where there's tea there's hope." ~ Arthur W. Pinero.
14. "Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence." ~ Samuel Johnson.
15. "Tea...is a religion of the art of life." ~ Okakura.
16. "Tea tempers the spirit and harmonizes the mind; dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents drowsiness." ~ Lu Yu.
17. "Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage." ~ Catherine Douzel.
18. "Tea does our fancy aid,Repress those vapours which the head invade, And keeps that palace of the soul serene." ~ Edmund Waller, "Of Tea".
19. "As the centerpiece of a cherished ritual, it's a talisman against the chill of winter, a respite from the ho-hum routine of the day." ~ Sarah Engler, "Tea Up," Real Simple magazine, February 2006.
20. "The perfect temperature for tea is two degrees hotter than just right." ~ Terri Guillemets.