Brewing Life Lessons

I have been making tea since I was 17. And I still managed to ruin it.

Final year of high school. Exams looming. Textbooks everywhere. And me, discovering that the best possible use of my time was perfecting the art of making a cup of tea.

It started as procrastination. It became a ritual.

I got serious about it. Steeping times, milk quantities, cup size — yes, cup size matters, and if you disagree we can't be friends. There was something about the whole process that slowed everything down. The boiling water, the smell, the quiet of it. When everything felt like too much, making tea brought me back to one simple thing.

That habit has never left me.

But here's the story I'm not as proud of.

A family gathering at my auntie's house. I was feeling confident — maybe a little too confident — and offered to make tea for the older aunties. Collected everyone's orders. Got to work. Very professional.

Handed out the cups.

Watched their faces fall.

"This tea tastes horrible."

I was mortified. How? I had been doing this for years. What could have possibly gone wrong?

Turns out — and I truly cannot believe I did this — I had used the salt instead of the sugar. They were in similar containers on the bench and I had not looked closely enough. Not even a little bit.

My auntie thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever seen. I wanted to disappear.

But here's what that salty, humbling moment actually taught me:

Attention to detail matters. When we're rushing or running on autopilot, we miss things. Slowing down — even just for a second — changes the outcome entirely.

Know how you work best. Just like tea needs the right ingredients in the right order, we all have ways of learning and working that suit us better than others. When we ignore that and just push through on autopilot, things go wrong. Sometimes hilariously wrong.

Routine is powerful. That tea habit I built at 17 gave me a way to reset during stressful moments. It still does. Finding your version of that — whatever brings you back to calm — is worth paying attention to.

The lessons that stick are rarely the ones we planned for.

Sometimes they come from a textbook. Sometimes from a very confused auntie taking a sip of something that absolutely should not taste like the ocean.

Find your perfect blend. And always check the label. ☕