Sugar? No Thanks, I’m Sweet Enough: A Love Letter to Tea

Tea isn’t just a drink; it’s a way of life, which some people just don’t get

That’s me! (Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

I love tea — all kinds of it. Herbal teas, fruit teas, green teas, sleepytime teas. I even make my own sometimes, drying rose petals from my garden or roasting dandelion roots for an earthy, slightly bitter brew. But when it comes down to it, my heart belongs to one thing: a proper cup of English Breakfast Tea.

Nothing beats it. Tea is the answer to everything — waking up, winding down, celebrating, commiserating. It’s there for the best days, the worst days, heartbreaks, weddings, post-holiday blues, and pure exhaustion after a long day out. Whatever the moment, tea fits. It’s liquid comfort. But growing up in Germany, surrounded by coffee drinkers, I rarely got to indulge. My parents weren’t tea people. Occasionally, we’d have a pot on a Sunday night with boiled eggs for supper, and I’d dump four sugars into mine. Why? No idea. I was young and reckless, it seems. Also, why didn’t my parents stop me?

Tea and Childhood Nostalgia

My grandmother in the UK, however, got it. She always had a pot of tea going, kept warm with a homemade tea cozy and perched on the pilot light of her gas stove. She drank only from a porcelain cup and…