Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Tea Conversion: My “Come to Rooibos” Moment

By Will Willingham 7 Comments

Add this to the list of things science can’t explain, like the Taos hum or Naga fireballs.

I’m an insurance adjuster. We’re a jaded, thick-skinned lot, and no matter what names you call us or legal action you threaten, we get all our crying done the first month on the job. We chomp animal crackers while we crunch numbers, and hold Dum Dum suckers in our cheeks like Kojak, white stick hanging from our lips all day long. Sometimes we make you listen to You Can’t Always Get What You Want on the Muzak while you wait on hold for us to decide your economic fate. We take our coffee thick and dark, the most hardcore among us chain smoking between cases of Diet Coke or bourbon at our desks.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve started my workday with a death grip on my big-handled 20-ounce-deep ceramic mug, large enough in which to plant a two-year deciduous seedling. An inch of coffee-laced milk foam rounded out four shots of black espresso. I chose coffee. Coffee chose me. Coffee became my love. The deafening rasp of my espresso machine, watching the light caramel foam develop on top of deep brown, could put me into a state of mystic ecstasy. I have more pictures of my coffee on Facebook than I do my own children.

But everything changed. I can’t explain it. Science can’t explain it.

One day I was rinsing spent grounds from my portafilter, and the next I was daring a tea-loving friend to teach me the fairer art of drinking tea. I don’t know if it was the first time she let me smell the fragrant black leaves, or if it took all the way to the first steamy sip. I saw the light as tiny leaves unfurled under almost-boiling water. Five days ago I broke the leg off a small elephant-shaped cookie and flicked it into the trash. I baked a loaf of bread. I hunted on the Internet for a good recipe for scones. I looked for dark chocolate that came on a sucker stick.

The whistle of my tea kettle produces an endorphin rush that makes the espresso machine slink behind the flour canister in effete shame. I drink all day from a delicate ivory Royal Doulton cup with a sage green design rounding the edge. I hold the gold-lined slender handle very lightly between my thumb and index.

What is happening? Who have I become? So many new questions form in my tea-clarified mind. Have I been abducted by aliens? Do aliens drink tea?

A customer called yesterday. I didn’t make her wait on hold. She told me about some precious belongings that had been damaged in a fire. I tipped a 20-ounce ceramic teapot to refill my cup with something that tasted like flowers, and it only gave up a few small drops.

“I know just how you feel, ” I said, a tear slipping down my cheek.

Photo by Steve A. Johnson. Creative Commons license via Flickr. This post by Will Willingham originally appeared at Chateau Rouge Tea. 

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Will Willingham
Will Willingham
Director of Many Things; Senior Editor, Designer and Illustrator at Tweetspeak Poetry
I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.
Will Willingham
Latest posts by Will Willingham (see all)
  • Earth Song Poem Featured on The Slowdown!—Birds in Home Depot - February 7, 2023
  • The Rapping in the Attic—Happy Holidays Fun Video! - December 21, 2022
  • Video: Earth Song: A Nature Poems Experience—Enchanting! - December 6, 2022

Filed Under: Blog, Coffee and Tea, poetry

Try Every Day Poems...

About Will Willingham

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.

Comments

  1. Jody Lee Collins says

    January 9, 2013 at 10:39 am

    Although I just confessed on the TS blog that I’m a big fan of coffee, I have come to love Earl Grey tea–with condensed milk and 2 teaspoons of sugar. It’s something about the bergamot….

    And to echo Ms. Barkat–there’s no explaining the one and only you.

    P.S. Poetry at work poems are the 15th? 14th?

    Reply
  2. L. L. Barkat says

    January 9, 2013 at 9:41 am

    So, you like rooibos? Good to hear. I have some I can share with you if you need any. 🙂

    This is totally delightful. Can science explain anything about the mysteries of you anyway? 😉

    Reply
  3. Maureen Doallas says

    January 9, 2013 at 10:55 am

    You might a heavy as an insurance adjuster but as a writer you can lighten the darkness of any day, with or without cream.

    Delighted to read this again.

    Jody, did you ever read about the English dust-up with Twinings over Earl Grey? The company messed with the combination of bergamot and lemon and regulars demanded the old brand be restored. There was even a FaceBook campaign. The company eventually caved. Now there’s “The Classic Edition”.

    Reply
  4. Diana Trautwein says

    January 9, 2013 at 11:30 pm

    Thank you, Maureen – for saying ‘again.’ I thought for a moment there my marbles were definitely lost as this was delightfully familiar to me. As a lifelong tea drinker (never learned to drink the sludge stuff), I salute the new you. Welcome to the world of delicate fragrances, subtle tastes and whistling tea kettles. Sigh.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. This Week's Top Ten Poetic Picks | Tweetspeak PoetryTweetspeak Poetry says:
    May 2, 2013 at 8:02 am

    […] We talk a fair bit around here about tea. Because, well, some of us drink an awful lot of it. But some of us drink coffee too. We recommend reading poetry with a cup of either one. NPR recently finished Coffee Week, a series of programs on Morning Edition featuring coffee culture, coffee buying, even a coffee quiz. The segment with Jerry Seinfeld on how his coffee habit began is as much fun as a four-shot latte with extra foam. (NPR) […]

    Reply
  2. Top 10 Tea Poems - says:
    August 11, 2016 at 8:01 am

    […] go together like sand and surf, like wine and cheese, like Bogey and Bacall. But as one whose coming to tea is inseparable from coming to poetry, the truer thing seems to be to say that all of those things […]

    Reply
  3. Poet Laura: Tea Journey - Tweetspeak Poetry says:
    March 6, 2024 at 5:02 am

    […] most of my adult life, I have considered myself to be a coffee-drinker. I remember in college taking my energy boosts with 64-ounce Mountain Dew Big Gulps, and some time […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Glynn on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Sandra Fox Murphy on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Glynn on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”
  • Bethany R. on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy