How A Solitary Tea Ritual Can Build Community
I’ll likely never give up my mornings of tea and quiet solitude, but I am choosing to incorporate more opportunities to get out of the house, interact with strangers, and build community. I’m more mindful about practicing nonjudgement, and accepting people, situations, and events as they are, not as I wish they were.
Don’t Consider Yourself a Lifelong Learner? Get into Tea
Studies show that lifelong learning - about anything really - benefits your mind, career, mental health, and social life. All it requires is a little curiosity. A desire to understand something or someone a little bit better, simply because that understanding kindles the inner fire inside us all. Some of our fires have turned into embers, and just need to be reignited. Do you know what else you can do with fire? Make tea.
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Performance Took No “Tea for the Fever”
As I watched his show, I felt nothing but respect and solidarity. The production was an open love letter to his homeland of Puerto Rico - and all the peoples of the Americas for that matter - and to the enduring belief that “the only thing more powerful than hate is love.”
In an era of ICE raids and racial animosity, Bad Bunny decided that he was taking no tea for the fever.
Using Tea to Stay Sane in 2026
We are one month into 2026, and already, many of us are tired. Tired of what we’re seeing on the news. Tired of our inability to escape our devices. Tired of how changing weather conditions, labor shortages, and the consistent undervaluation of tea are literally brewing trouble for the worldwide tea industry. Ok, that last one might be pretty specific to me.
My point is that modern stressors are taking their toll. Whereas the start of a new year typically signaled opportunities for resolutions and optimistic outlooks, it seems that many people have gained Nostradamus-like abilities and are insistent on proclaiming that the future is bleak.
Here’s the thing. They may be right. We don’t know.
What I do know is that whatever the future holds, we can choose how to approach it. We can choose to stay grounded. Sometimes, we just need something tangible to keep us from the brink. For me, tea has been a steadying force. As the second most consumed beverage in the world, after water, it has been many people’s steadying force for thousands of years.