I had almost forgotten how wonderful it is to drink a hot cup of tea (or several) in the evening after my son has gone to sleep. During the long hot Japanese summer, drinking hot tea has been the last thing on my mind (although for hot coffee, somehow there is always a time and a place). Now, when the temperature is more to liken with cooler Swedish summer days, suddenly the longing for tea has come rushing in with the autumn winds. I am still walking around barefoot at home but the floor feels nice and cool under the feet, the air conditioner is off and it is no longer unpleasant to put on clothes after the shower. It is basically just comfortable to be. To quietly sit with a hot cup of tea.
I have always enjoyed a cup of tea in the evening. I remember the dark summer evenings in my grandmother’s summer cottage when I was a child, when grandma and aunts and cousins sat around the table in the evenings drinking tea and talking. I think of my university days with late night studying next to a cup of tea. Or mornings before I met my wife that always started with a big cup or two of rose hip tea. Come to think of it, there must be a tea for every situation. Cold tea is very popular in Japan, and I can certainly see its charm during hot and humid summer’s days. My son sees its charm every day, but unlike him, I normally prefer hot tea. Before he was born I never drank rooibos tea, but since he came into our life rooibos tea has become a fixture at home. We often make a big pot of red tea in the evening, I drink it hot and put the remains in the fridge for our son to drink the next day.
Among all teas, I have come to like green tea the best, especially with Japanese food, and if I ever need to buy something from one of the vending machines found just about everywhere in Japan, I normally go for a bottle of cold green tea. While drinking it often in Sweden, here we only occasionally have “normal” brown tea. The English kind of tea is saved for those rare occasions when my wife and I go and have afternoon tea. Right now I am having a cup of peach-passion fruit rooibos tea, a recent favorite. Other evenings there might be ginger lemon tea or maybe rose hip – at night no caffeine tea is very good to sleep on. And with that I say good night.
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