Tea as Connection

On this blog, we have explored many topics relating to tea – its initial discovery, its processing, its history, taste profiles, even using tea in telling the future or baking. Dancing around a central theme seldom needing to be uttered: tea brings people together. Why is this? It is by no means the only beverage that people meet for, alcohol and coffee are by no means less popular than tea, but it does have a distinct social nuance that its counterparts lack.

It is this sentimental thread that has been staring at me, that I would like to pull on today.

For all the emphasis we put on the importance of good tea, whether there are two gritty teabags in large impractical promotional mugs, or expertly processed leaves dancing in a glass teapot filled with precisely heated filtered tap water, the sentiment of ‘I’ll stick the kettle on’ remains the same. Sharing tea feels intimate and comforting and sometimes is precisely what is needed to start a heavy conversation with an unspoken unity. Sometimes a cup of tea is just nice to have, of course, and I am not begrudging anyone their solitary morning brew, but this is not what I wish to examine today. On this grey January morning, I am craving a cup of tea; shared. But why tea, specifically?

Allowing romantic sensibilities to take over a scientific approach for just a moment, there is a specific meditative poetry in tea. Coffee is a nuanced beverage with a similarly strong history of being used as a connective means, but I believe that its reliance in society as a stimulant to ensure productivity (the phrase “Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee” comes to mind) impacts scenarios that it touches to some extent, whether we are conscious of it or not. Alcohol (and I think of wine here specifically as it has a rich history and following similar to tea and coffee) is coffee’s opposite: it is used culturally to ‘loosen up’ and slow down. It is therefore, in the UK at least, primarily consumed in the evening and on weekends. Tea is distinct from both of these in that it is not as caffeinated as coffee, or perhaps not caffeinated at all, and does not have the inhibition-lowering effects of alcohol and so any conversations that flow from a shared tea are mutually consciously vulnerable place, where deep thinking and the quiet joy of being individuals sharing this moment and this conversation are the primary intoxicators. With tea, these conversations also take place at any time of day or night, and the light of day also can carry a raw, exposing quality that can deepen the impact of chosen shared snippets of insight.

Inviting friends over to share a pot of tea may be quite unusual nowadays, in this writer’s circles at any rate, but there is a poignancy in it that I believe cannot be matched. In a time of work-from-home, social media FOMO, fast-paced living, the act of choosing to pause to share a pot of tea with someone you care about and listen to a new record together is a deliberate, recalibrating act of creating true connection.

Explore the teas you want to share here or in our Winchester shop, ring that person you've been thinking of whilst reading this, get the old teapot out, and stick the kettle on.