Recently I bought a new teapot. I have a stainless steel one already. It lives on our wood stove insert. It is
filled with water for cold days until it heats up from the comfortable burning
fire. The man, my husband is the fire builder.
The fires he makes are generally because he has walked by me and has
seen me huddled beneath several woven lap blankets, assorted knitted throws,
and what-nots. The sight of me shivering with three sweaters on, hands tightly
gripping a (burn your fingers) cup of hot tea stirs something in my husband. After kissing the top of my head, he promptly
sets about starting a fire.
We don’t always have a fire burning as I am not good
about tending to it while he is gone during the day unless he has carefully
placed wood at the ready in the garage for me.
I get distracted somehow and the fire goes untended until it dies in
despair.
Back to the new teapot. It is blue and beautiful. It is a whistling teapot. I had seen it in a little kitchen shop before
Christmas but I had only admired it from afar as I was on a mission for pizza
at the small bakery next door. The pizza
was still in the oven and I was wandering and biding my time patiently waiting
for hot, delicious pizza for our lunch. I was looking only, no touching, the better to
resist temptation. As food was on the
horizon, I quickly lost interest in the wonders of the kitchen store. The pizza
was perfect.
It is now January.
After watching an episode of Voir on television, the teapot came
to life. The presenter was having tea and was pouring from my teapot. I promptly said, “I want that.”
My husband, the man ever attentive in old moments
asked, “What?”
“The teapot.”
I now have the teapot.
It is teaching me patience.
Whereas before I would fill my cup with water, microwave, steep and it
was ready, my tea takes a longer process with the teapot. First, fill the
teapot to an exact line, place on the heat, wait for the boil and after the
whistle, wait 15 to 20 seconds off of the heat. This takes more than 1 minute, 30
seconds in the microwave I had been doing for a cup of tea.
I make a matcha green tea with powder. I have always found it soothing. The precise
measuring with my son’s baby spoon of the matcha, the whisking of a bit of hot
water and matcha together without a thought in my head as I gaze at the motion
of the whisk, the green powder undergoing a transformation into a cloudy green
liquid. I still do it. But the blue
teapot has added a new dimension. The
matcha still does its thing, I still whisk but my thoughts have a hint of
anticipation. An excitement. A waiting.
Boiling down to becoming patient.
