Tea

Today I had a brand new experience. I went shopping at Cornelia Bean. (I think that means I’ve entered into a new level of sophistication.)

For those of you not as sophisticated as I now am, and don’t know what in the world I’m talking about, Cornelia Bean is this super fun store on Academy that sells fair trade loose leaf tea and coffee, and any other tea/coffee-fangled things that your heart could possibly desire.

I went shopping at this store to buy a gift certificate for someone who is a bit of an expert in the world of loose leaf tea, and frequents Cornelia Bean, making him much more sophisticated than I am.

Now, I did not know before today how much money it is possible to spend on tea and coffee. You could get carried away. Since I was not there to get carried away, I looked around only a little bit, and then got in line to buy my gift certificate right away.

But then something happened to me.

I was waiting to pay, and sitting right there on the counter was a bag of tea that was being advertised as “Creamy Lemon Green Tea”.

And I wanted it.

Let’s review a few things here, shall we? I feel that it’s important for you to know that I have spent 31 years of my life HATING the taste of tea. (Since I’m only 32, that’s a fairly large portion of my life.) I drink water. And water. In the past, I used to drink juice and hot chocolate, but now I’m on this restricted diet that we won’t even get into right now, and so no more juice or hot chocolate for me.

But on cold days, I really, really envied people with their mugs of hot luxury. So I decided that I would make myself like tea so that I, too, could have luxury in a mug.

I once heard that if you eat or drink something every day for 3 weeks, you can make yourself like anything. So that’s what I did. Ben helped me. He made a cup of tea every day, and at first, just gave me a sip each time. It was gross to me back then. A sip was all I could manage.

Then I worked my way up to a 1/4 of cup. Then half. And so on, until I made a whole cup of tea just for myself, even when Ben wasn’t around. At first, I chugged that thing down just to do it, but gradually, I began to enjoy it, and now, I am officially a tea drinker.

And let me tell you, my life has changed. Pleasure can come from such simple things.

But still, it was rather shocking to me to realize, as I stood in the store today, how much I wanted that tea!

But Cornelia Bean is expensive, and although I could get to the point where I’m all particular about my tea, and only insist on the best, for now I’m still deliriously happy with my cheap tea bags.

But “Creamy Lemon Green Tea”! My contentment might not last for very long. I think it’s the word “creamy” that does me in. But let’s keep in mind that I’ve had a cold/cough/sore throat for a week, and the thought of hot, creamy tea going down sounds ….quite nice.

So the point of this?? When’s the last time you tried something new?

I think it’s super easy for us to get stuck in our ways, and not even realize that we’re stuck. Or to get really set on a certain way of doing something, or very determined in our thinking that something is right or wrong, and we know best, and other people just aren’t as enlightened.

I love being married to Ben for many reasons, but one of them in particular is that he doesn’t let me get “stuck”. He challenges me on my opinions, which are sometimes hastily and emotionally formed, and then I’m attached to them when it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to be attached long-term.

So tea today got me thinking about getting un-stuck, and about being open to stuff that we might not like, or be comfortable with, because we might be missing out on something. Creamy Lemon Green Tea could be waiting for you, and you have no idea it’s there!

(Good grief, why didn’t I just buy it? I’m so going back to Cornelia Bean to get myself some…)