Still Trying To Like Tea

For years now, I've been trying to develop a taste for tea.  Tea has so much to recommend it:  tons of antioxidants;  a strong aesthetic tradition and a world of adorable pots and cups--not to mention cozies-- to go with it;  not enough caffeine to keep me awake at night, and so on.

So why am I not drinking as much tea as I think I should?  Because I'm drinking coffee.

Compared to coffee, tea, whether green or black, lapsang-souchong, darjeeling, orange pekoe, Irish breakfast, or gunmetal, seems to me anemic, namby-pamby.  Even when sweetened, it never tastes like much more than slightly bitter H2O.  Whereas a good cup of coffee can take the place of dessert, can be almost as satisfying (if memory serves) as smoking a cigarette, can revive the flagging animus.  It tastes of chocolate, of red wine, and best of all, it tastes and smells strongly and unmistakably of what it is:  coffee.

During my recent years' immersion in British literature, I have read thousands of accounts of tea made, served, and drunk in every possible circumstance, from the sordid to the exalted.  And I am no closer to understanding its hold on the British, just as I do not--and never hope to--share their taste for marmite.

Perhaps there is nothing I can do about it.  Perhaps there are coffee people and tea people, just as there are dog people and cat people.  But I have loved and lived with both dogs (the coffee equivalent) and cats (more of a tea kind of pet), so I see no reason I shouldn't bridge the coffee world and the world of tea as well.

For years, believing that coffee was not good for me, I gave it up in favor of tea--usually green tea, never in a bag, made with water at the recommended temperature.  Every time I drank a cup, I wished it were coffee. Then this year, hearing that women who drank two or more cups of coffee a day were significantly less likely to be depressed than those who drank less or none, I threw myself back into the arms of coffee.  Black, strong and full of attitude, it leaves me, after each encounter, satisfied, exhilarated and a little shaky.
 

Meditator Wannabe

I understand that it takes a smoker an average of six serious tries before he or she can kick the smoking habit for good.  I've been keeping this in mind the last few mornings as I try yet again to develop the meditation habit.

How many times have I attempted this?  I can't remember--probably more than six.  I started meditating sometime in the 1990s, and I must have tried at least once every year since then.  Sometimes I manage to meditate almost daily for a couple of months;  sometimes for a couple of weeks.  This time, I'm hoping it will stick.

I've read lots of instructions on how to do it.  It's not hard:  sit comfortably, close your eyes, relax, and focus on your breath.  A mantra is optional.  Your mind will wander, and you will bring it back gently to your breath.

I follow all the above to the letter.  I sit on a yoga cushion on the floor in a half lotus, which feels comfortable to me.  I close my eyes, relax, and focus on my breath.  And my mind wanders.

I think about the dog--big or small, Wolfie or Bisou--that has snuggled right up against my legs and is now snoring softly.  I think about my mother.  I think about the next clay piece I'm going to make.  I think about spring.  Ideas for blog posts cascade through my brain.

I return gently to my breath, and next thing I know I'm planning next season's garden, and worrying that it will soon be time to retire (i.e., kill) my three old hens to make room for new ones that will start laying next winter....  But back to the breath.

While my, as the buddhist call it, monkey mind careens through the jungles of my brain, I notice a familiar tingling sensation in my right leg.  That's the one that always goes to sleep first.  Soon the left one will follow suit, and by the time my thirty minutes are over, it will take me another five to regain full mobility.  But never mind.  I should focus on the present, on the breath that has been going in and coming out of my body the whole time I've been ignoring it.
 
And so on and so forth.

Meditation is supposed to do wonderful things, both mental and physical, for you.  If you do it faithfully, thirty minutes every day, it will actually change the structure of your brain, for the better.  I can't imagine how something that feels so like nothing can be that effective.  It's kind of like drinking green tea, which is full of amazing antioxidants but tastes only like slightly bitter water to me.
  
I do both--meditate and drink green tea--once a day, on faith.  But often I can't help wondering whether both the tea and the sitting still aren't a huge joke that the inscrutable East is playing on us gullible westerners.