Happiness is... a Cup of Tea

Anyone who knows me will tell you how much I like tea.  Correction - I don’t like it…I love it…can’t get enough of it.  I suppose it isn’t surprising as I grew up in Ireland, a place where the kettle is never cold.  And we are all familiar with Mrs Doyle in Father Ted!   Apparently, Irish people drink more tea per capita than any other country.  It is a large part of everyday life and a familiar and soothing ritual in happy times and sad, when sharing troubles or successes, to bond over in friendship or knit solidarity after arguments. Tea plays a big part in my life and it also looms large in many of the works of John Cowper Powys.

The characters in his novels crave it, boil kettles, prepare cups and saucers, search for tea shops, reflect on it and of course, drink it.  So much so that Margaret Drabble commented “More bread and butter is consumed and more tea drunk in the novels of John Cowper Powys than in the whole of the rest of English literature.”  Just like any author, he uses it to set scenes or provide insight into a particular character but as with everything else regarding JCP, there is more to it than that.  

In his philosophy for living, he points out that we look for happiness in the big, the spectacular, the unusual and overlook the simple things which are the real sources of contentment and happiness.  And a readily accessible, ever present source of happiness lies in our five senses which we take for granted and under use.  He promotes the idea of living ‘a life of sensations’ in order to extract as much as possible out of the simple, ordinary things of life.  I say I like tea yet can consume many cups without really noticing it or tasting it because I am immersed in something else.  It is common for most of us to grab a cup of tea and drink it ‘on the hoof’ or while on the computer or carrying out a task.  

JCP sees tea as not merely a hot beverage but as a series of sensations and a source of simple enjoyment and contentment.  Approached with a less utilitarian view and with time and our full attention, it can become a magic potion and nectar from the gods. It can transform our mood and lift our spirits, not soley due to its caffeine content, but because we have engaged our senses.  We notice its rich brown colour and the steam rising and curling before evaporating into the air, we hear the ‘glugging’ sound as it is poured from the pot and swirls around the cup and the tinkling of the spoon as we stir it, we smell the aroma as it drifts to our nostrils, we feel the heat of it through the smoothness of the cup and against our mouth, we taste its flavour as it passes our lips and fires our taste-buds into sending messages to our brain, we feel the warmth diffuse through our body, relaxing us.  If we just stop for a short while, sit and forget the worries and lists and are simply present to the experience,  drinking a cup of tea can be transformed into a moment of escape, peace and enjoyment.  It is then that a cup of tea becomes a source of contentment and happiness, an experience that wakes us up and brings us alive.  

Powys reminds us to look deeper and recognise that the simplest of things are not only sources of happiness but also have much to teach us.  A cup of tea is not just a convenient drink that comes in a package but is sourced from a living thing, a plant that grew and felt the sun and rain, that the water came from a river before it reached the kettle, and that the cup from which we drink is made from clay and water.  Perhaps recognising and reflecting on such things, even momentarily, would be beneficial not only to ourselves but to the planet, at this time of human separation and disrespect for the natural world.  JCP has much to teach us about how to live more fully, in tune with ourselves and the earth.

Some word on sensations from JCP:

“It is astonishing what little pleasure we get from eating and drinking,…from going to sleep and waking up,… from bathing, …from making lather with a piece of soap,…from noting the yellow sunlight upon our bedroom wall, or the frost marks upon our window-pane, or the flight of sea-gulls over the roofs, or the chirping of sparrows in bare branches,…the faint sounds of sirens from the harbor….I say it is astonishing, and the evidence of sheer psychic stupidity, what little pleasure we get from these things.”

(In Defence of Sensuality)