Nodding off of No Tea

Greetings! I've been out for the last couple of weeks visiting family, but I'm back in Seattle now and am getting back to work on this little blog.

It tends to be the case that I notice things about my tea habit when I'm on the road. This is because, on the road, I regularly find myself without hot water to brew my tea.

This week, I decided to record my experience of sleep WITHOUT tea. What I mean by this is the nodding-off type of dazed, messy sleep that sets in around 24 hours without having imbibed my favorite plant. And as soon as I drink a few infusions of a good, strong oolong it loosens its grip on my eyelids and mind. Following is a dramatization of my experience without tea a couple days ago.

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Dividing my return flights I had a massive layover in Denver. I decided against paper cup brewing with S***bucks machine water because I didn't bring along any teas that I thought deserved such treatment. That was my first mistake. And I also made the silly decision to avoid coffee, so as not to disrupt my sleep cycle any worst than I already would be, seeing as my flight was a red-eye. This was my second mistake.

On the last leg of my journey I started to nod. The world dimmed. A tunnel of abstraction laid itself down between my field of vision and my retinas. The most marvelous plant let on to me that it too has an ugly side, and I slipped into a half-dreamlike state of mind. But it wasn't that I had dreamed, it was the opposite. The sleep was a heavy darkness that I would fight against if I wanted to open my eyes, and when they were open it felt like a dream. I was altogether discombobulated.

Once I made it through the flight and collected my luggage through a haze of tea-lessness, I headed home on the bus. The surreal nature of the tealess feeling was probably amplified by the fact I had brought only light cotton shorts, a short-sleeve shirt and flip-flops to protect me from Seattle's most recent snow. This was my third (and honestly, the glaringly stupidest) blunder during my trip home.

When I walked in my front door I immediately ran to the kettle and feverishly grabbed a gaiwan and some strong Tie Guanyin. As soon as the water boiled, on the leaves it went. I didn't even bother to rinse them! As the leaves sat there, infusing in the bowl, the clouds above me cleared and the tea-gods began to forgive me. Their blessings lifted me out of a dark funk with the first sip, and I felt I was on solid ground after the third infusion was drained into my fairness vessel. Leaf be praised!

Thanks for reading, and I take full responsibility for the dingus behavior, complaining and snobbery that set me up for a tealess hell. It was actually quite fun, especially to look back on! I hope that you darling teafolk can avoid such mistakes in your own lives. May your gaiwan brew for a thousand years!!!

NOAH