With a cup of my favorite tea I write this note hoping that you will read it too holding a cup of delicious tea in your hands.

This wonderful plant that has given so much to humanity deserves to have its day .

Just two years ago the UN established that it should be on May 21, although for me, as for many, every day is a “tea day.”

This plant came into my life and changed it completely, not only because my business is based on it, but because of everything it has taught me and given me. I once read this phrase that I love:

“Enjoy everything, even the smallest things, if you start enjoying, even having a cup of tea becomes something sacred”

How timely it feels in these uncertain times, with so many changes brought to us by the pandemic, which have invited us to do just that: “enjoy life, the little things of everyday life.” How many things that seemed trivial have become sacred to you?
For me, drinking tea is definitely one of them, but so is hugging my loved ones, watching the sun rise or set, hugging my pet, smelling the flowers…

If we consider how many millions of people depend on one (or several) cups of tea a day to make them happy, to feel comfortable, to start the work or school day, to chat with friends or simply to sit comfortably and read a book, you will realize how important this drink is in our world, where it is the most consumed prepared drink of all.

In this world that taught us 2 years ago the importance of stopping, taking a break and valuing what is truly important.

Equally important is the fact that millions of people work hard day in and day out to achieve those wonders that we know as “tea leaves” and that can take from 1 day to 5 years to produce (when it comes to aged pu erh).

How many thousands of years have passed before that single plant, Camellia Sinensis, became the plant of six colors? How much wisdom is there in its cells, how much virtue do we extract from it with hot water? How many secrets does it tell us when we pay real attention to it? How much happiness does it bring us when we are fortunate enough to prepare it for friends or guests?

This is “my” tea, my beautiful little tea that deserves more than one day to celebrate it, and what is it for you?

Strictly speaking, the UN named International Tea Day for:
“to help small producers in the main tea exporting countries”. The objectives of this day are:

• Offer and strengthen the rights of minority workers and producers within the global market.
• Create a uniform legal framework that highlights and protects the rights of workers and people who make a living through the marketing of tea.
• Encourage political decisions that are necessary to guarantee better living standards for producers.
• Suggest regulatory mechanisms regarding price and market share.
• Jointly promote tea consumption and marketing.

I say goodbye by quoting Muriel Barbery, who in my opinion understands and expresses very well what this wonderful drink gives us: “The ritual of tea, this precise repetition of the same gestures and the same tasting, this access to simple, authentic and refined sensations, this license granted to everyone, without much effort, to become an aristocrat of taste, because tea is the drink of the rich as it is of the poor; the ritual of tea, therefore, has the extraordinary virtue of introducing into the absurdity of our lives a breach of serene harmony.” "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" (2006), Muriel Barbery

Olivia Medina de Jönsson

Tea Master, EURO TEA