Personal Tea and Study Dates

I’ve taken to scheduling myself a weekly tea and Classical Chinese study date. It’s good to have some scheduled time for this.

Most of the time when I drink tea I just make a big mug of tea, and drink that at my computer, while I read the internet. If I’m feeling more fancy I’ll make the tea in one of my small teapots instead and drink it out of a fancy teacup.

But for my tea dates I will get out my tea tray, gawain and tea pets. (I have two little rabbits now a while on call Bao and a dark gray one called Sesame) I take the sewing machine off its usual table to make space. Then I move the kettle out of the tea corner where it generally lives, and bring it to the table. It’s a good set up that feels a bit special.

For studying I try to do something that takes a bit of focus that I might not get to. It's a good time to practice my handwriting, or work on writing out a translation from the text book I’m studying. But sometimes I also use one of my study apps.

I really like this practice. It gives me some time to make tea in a way that requires more focus, and it also gives my language study more structure which is very helpful since it is all self directed.