Tea With My Wife: Enjoying a Self-Care Ritual Together

Or: I love my wife, and here’s one of many reasons why.

For a long time, I’ve been a coffee person. I wasn’t always a coffee person — for a long time, I was a soda person, then an energy drink person. When I was in my mid-20s, I decided to make myself a coffee person, since I would soon have a full-time office job and would need to drink “adult” drinks to get my energy kick.

So, I started with mochas. They’re loaded with milk, sugar, and chocolate, so the coffee taste was bearable. Eventually, I got a full-time office job and started drinking black coffee with sucralose. Then, at my current job, they didn’t have that particular sweetener on hand, so I used sugar, first in large amounts, then easing off over several months until I was drinking unsweetened black coffee.

I was never much of a tea person until I had a medication shift and coffee suddenly started making me feel sick. I found a high-caffeine tea that didn’t taste bad and drank that for a while until my stomach was able to manage coffee again. Other than that, I didn’t really drink tea.

I wasn’t a snob about it, necessarily. I enjoyed chai lattes, which I knew was a spiced tea, and I would sample my wife’s tea on occasion, but I didn’t necessarily drink it all the time. My wife, however, doesn’t care for coffee or soda, so she drinks tea most days. It wasn’t ever something I cared for, but I enjoyed watching her make it for herself.

Then, the pandemic happened. Suddenly, I was home all day every day, drinking my own coffee and watching her take her daily cuppa. Being polite, she offered to make some for me. Not being much of a tea person, I politely declined.

Eventually, however, I agreed to let her make me a cup. It was nice — different from coffee, but similar in many ways. I’d switched to iced coffee in the mornings since it was easier to make a big batch of that and drink it all week, so having a hot beverage again was rather nice.

So, she hand-held me through a couple of different basic tea flavors until I found one that I enjoyed. I’ve settled on a very basic English Breakfast from Twinings. It’s got a simple, nice flavor and isn’t too complicated. I add what is probably too much honey, but I like it on the sweet side.

So, for a bit over a year now, I’ve been taking tea with my wife in the mornings. Along the way, it has become a sort of ritual for us. I’ve learned what kind of tea she likes (lots of different kinds, but her go-to is Earl Grey). I’ve learned how she takes it (a spoonful of honey — not too much, just enough to give it a bit of sweetness). I’ve learned how to brew our respective teas (boiling water for four minutes for the various black teas we drink, with a couple of exceptions). I’ve learned how to temper our mugs (run tap water until it gets hot, let sit in the mugs for a few minutes) and why (to ensure that the ceramic is warm and doesn’t crack when the boiling water is added).

And so, our morning tea has become part of our daily ritual. Along the way, it’s turned into a bit of self-care for both of us. Taking a minute to make tea can help with mindfulness, particularly if you drink something other than black tea. Many of the other types of tea — green tea and white tea in particular — require lower water temperatures, so you need to be aware of your brewing conditions to ensure that you don’t scald the leaves and wind up with a foul-tasting cup.

It also helps me connect with my wife as well. I’ve had the benefit of already enjoying my wife’s company, even during the pandemic, and this is one of the things that has helped us become a bit closer. I’ve found that sharing something with your partner — whether it is a ritual, a hobby, or even just an inside joke — can help improve your connection, and this is no different.

I love my wife, and I certainly take whatever opportunities I’m afforded to remind her of that. For me, sharing tea is another way to show my love for her. It didn’t necessarily start that way — almost the opposite, as her offering to make me tea was a means for her to show her love for me. I’ve just come to reciprocate it towards her.

So, today, as with most days, I will enjoy putting the kettle on to boil, tempering her mug and mine, and making us some tea. As the saying goes, love comes in a cup, and I’m looking forward to filling her cup every day for a long, long time.

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