The Tea I Never Drank

This morning I opened the kitchen cupboard looking for tea.

I stood there for longer than I needed to.

Not because I couldn't decide what to drink...

But because I'd somehow collected more tea than any one person could reasonably need.

Chamomile.

Peppermint.

Nettle.

Green tea.

Ginseng.

Dandelion.

Loose leaf breakfast tea.

Organic coffee.

Cinnamon.

Jars of dried herbs gathered from the garden.

A pot of organic set honey waiting patiently beside them all.

And then there's Val tea.

Half breakfast tea.

Half Earl Grey.

Named after my friend Valerie, who first introduced me to it years ago.

Try it one day.

It's surprisingly wonderful.

I still make it exactly the way she taught me.

Funny, isn't it?

How some recipes quietly become people.

Recently, I swapped our electric kettle for an old camping kettle.

It boils water just as slowly as you'd imagine.

But that's rather the point.

I love waiting for it.

I love the gentle build-up before the whistle finally arrives.

That wonderfully high-pitched squeal that fills the kitchen and somehow makes making tea feel less like another task and more like a tiny ritual.

It reminds me of campsites.

Of damp mornings.

Of sitting outside before anyone else has woken.

Sometimes bringing a little of the outdoors inside is enough.

Standing in front of that cupboard, I found myself wondering something.

How did I end up with so much tea?

When did collecting tea become part of who I am?

The answer, I suspect, begins with a cup of tea I never actually drank.

Many years ago, in my early twenties, I was travelling through Malaysia.

Like so many journeys, it wasn't planned particularly well.

It unfolded one bus ride, one conversation and one wrong turn at a time.

Eventually I found myself in the Cameron Highlands.

If there were ever a place to drink tea, surely this was it.

Rolling lush green hills.

Endless tea plantations.

Cool mountain air drifting through the valleys.

The sort of place that makes you believe tea must taste different there.

More alive and sacred somehow.

I'd imagined sitting with a freshly brewed cup, looking out across the plantations, wondering how many hands had picked the leaves before they reached mine.

Instead...

The tea rooms were closed.

Tuesday.

Of all the days.

I laughed.

There wasn't much else to do.

It's funny how life sometimes closes the very door you've travelled halfway around the world to walk through.

And then quietly opens another.

Instead of drinking tea...

I met Matt.

Ian.

And Louise.

Three strangers who somehow became travelling companions almost overnight.

One evening we found ourselves in a bar singing along to Boney M and Tina Turner beneath a screen so enormous it felt like the whole building had become karaoke.

It was ridiculous.

Completely unexpected.

And one of those nights where laughter comes so easily that nobody wants to be the first person to leave.

That evening we headed back to sleep in old military hospital bunkers.

Even now, it sounds like the beginning of a story someone else should have lived.

The days that followed became a blur of adventures I could never have planned on my own.

We wandered through Malaysia and Borneo together.

Visited orangutans and wildlife sanctuaries.

Walked beneath rainforest canopies that seemed older than imagination itself.

Travelled to Sapi Island where the sea was so clear it barely looked real.

Spent time on Turtle Island, helping release tiny hatchlings into the ocean, watching creatures no bigger than the palm of your hand disappear into an impossibly large world learning that only 5% of these babies would make it to adulthood.

We wandered through Penang.

Listened to Buddhist monks chanting inside temples.

Louise and I survived a six-hour coach journey only for me to discover, far too late, that the seats had thoughtfully gifted me an impressive collection of bedbug bites all over my bottom.

Some memories stay with you in unexpected ways.

Eventually our journeys separated.

Matt flew home.

Before he left, we shared a kiss.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Just one of those small moments that somehow survives much longer than it probably should.

He gave me a tiny square bead from one of the Buddhist temples we'd visited together.

It's still with me today.

Small enough to disappear into the palm of my hand.

Big enough to carry an entire chapter of my life.

Ian and I did something else before leaving Malaysia.

At Kek Lok Si Temple, which was still being built at the time, visitors could pay to have their family names written onto one of the roof tiles.

We did.

Somewhere, thousands of miles from my kitchen, beneath a Malaysian sky I haven't seen for years, our families' names are still sitting quietly together on that temple roof.

Neither of us could have known where life would take us afterwards.

We never stayed in touch.

In truth, none of us did.

And somehow...

That feels perfectly alright.

Some friendships are only ever meant to exist inside one chapter.

Perhaps that doesn't make them any less important.

Perhaps it makes them exactly what they were supposed to be.

Standing in front of my tea cupboard this morning, I realised something.

I don't think I've been collecting tea.

I've been collecting moments.

Every packet seems connected to somebody.

A place.

A conversation.

A version of myself I'd almost forgotten.

Valerie is there.

Malaysia is there.

The Cameron Highlands are there.

Even though I never drank the tea.

Maybe that's why I love making tea so much.

Not because it's only ever about the drink.

It's about pausing long enough for memories to catch up.

The whistle of the kettle.

The scent of fresh mint crushed between my fingers.

Chamomile gathered from the garden.

Honey slowly disappearing into warm water.

The simple rhythm of making something by hand.

Somewhere between boiling the kettle and pouring the first cup, the past quietly slips into the room.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Just enough to remind me that ordinary rituals often carry extraordinary stories.

I've often thought about that closed tea room in the Cameron Highlands.

For years I imagined I'd somehow missed out.

That I'd travelled all that way and never experienced one of the things I'd gone there for.

Now I'm not so sure.

Because if the tea rooms had been open...

Would I have spent that evening singing Boney M with three strangers?

Would I still have a tiny square bead tucked safely away after all these years?

Would a temple roof in Malaysia still be carrying two families' names?

Would I remember that place with quite so much affection?

I don't know.

Perhaps not.

Maybe life isn't always found behind the doors we hoped would open.

Maybe it's quietly waiting behind the ones that didn't.

And perhaps that's why my kitchen cupboard is now overflowing with tea.

Not because I ever found the perfect cup.

But because somewhere along the way, I discovered something much richer.

A cupboard full of memories.

And every now and then...

One cup is enough to remind me where I've left them.

I never drank tea in the Cameron Highlands.

But perhaps some journeys were never about arriving where we thought we were going.