The Tea Hour: Evening steeping rituals, gently toured

June Alderwood

There is a particular kind of quiet that only arrives once the kettle clicks off. This is a gentle tour through that hour: how steep time changes what a cup gives you, which leaves calm and which merely warm, the small rituals of pouring and waiting that signal to the body it is safe to slow down, and how to turn one ordinary mug into the clearest signal of the day that it is done.