Melissa’s Cozy Teacup

My husband and I come home from our trip to the grocery store. I quickly put away the foods that need to be refrigerated and reach for my reward. My fingers wrap around the small rectangular box causing the cellophane wrapping to make it’s familiar crinkling sound. As I rip open the flimsy plastic shell, I catch the first tantalizing whiff of leaves inside. Once the plastic is completely removed, I open the box of carefully wrapped tea bags nestled in their foil bags, neatly tucked in like children in a bed. I deeply inhale the exotic aroma and imagine misty hills in far off places and sun baked people in colorful fabrics. Places where I long to go and people I would like to meet.

People I have never met have tenderly picked the now withered leaves that rest inside this tiny box.

I think it is amazing that tea used to cost about $100.00 when it was first brought over to America (about $2000.00 by today’s exchange rate-give or take). Today, you can have your own little box of this exotic beverage for less than $4.00. Incredible! A beverage that used to belong exclusively to the very rich is now available to anyone who walks into the grocery store.

Back in the day, oh say a couple of hundred years or so, tea was so expensive and so highly sought after that servants would dry the tea leaves used by the ladies they served and sell them to be reused later by someone unable to purchase them at full cost. When even that proved to be too expensive for some, there was always the black market tea infused with dirt and sheep dung. Mmmm, tasty.

Now, tea seems to be everywhere and in a wide variety of flavors too. If it has been a while since you have shaken things up in your tea cup, why not try something different today? All it would take to experience something new is a quick trip to the store. Who knows, you may just end up dreaming of far away places and who knows where that would lead?