Why Tea Is Better Than Coffee

It all started with the sentence ‘’Let’s get coffee sometime.’’

Going on coffee dates and munching on the cookies that came with it always succeed into second dates. In this case, our first coffee date led to several more. On our fifth date, the taste of his lips touched mine after I woke my taste buds up with the mellow and rich flavor of coffee. Me, the one who favored coffee with excessive milk and sugar. Him, a classic coffee drinker. Black with a little licorice hint. The way we liked our coffee matches our personalities.

When he invited me over for a cup of coffee, it was the first time that I shared the night with him. In the morning, we walked down the streets as the early morning sun rays kissed our faces. We went to a nearby coffee shop and ordered the usual. It became our go-to place to meet. Soon, we couldn’t get enough of each other. Like coffee, we became each other’s new addiction.

Coffee was our incentive, the glue that held us together.

Coffee was our drug. Without it, there was no starting point. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to be around each other. It was the icebreaker that we needed. One day I tried black coffee for the sake of him. It tasted pretentious and stale, and it left a bitter aftertaste.

After I woke my taste buds up from the black java, I realized I did the same thing to my coffee as I did to the men in my life. I covered them with sugar and spices to make them look interesting in my view. Even though they might be bad for me, I still made it acceptable to my taste to distract me from their intentions and personality. I fooled myself thinking that the only thing worse than black coffee is to drink it alone.

That’s why I turned to tea.

Tea has no double meanings. What you see is what you get. Maybe less intimidating in taste and even plain for some people. Tea is like that comforting friend that visits you after a hectic day. It is soothing and not overwhelming. You drink it because you want to, not because you need to. It can accompany you at any moment of the day, instead of feeling embarrassed about yet another coffee paper cup in your hand. Coffee is our guilty pleasures packed with all kinds of emotions. It drags us along in a roller coaster of high highs and low lows. It hypes us up at first only to find ourselves exhausted and out of it at the end of the ride. On the other hand, tea is what really puts our mind at peace at the end of the day.

I’ve learned that tea is better than coffee. I would never turn my back on tea just like I did with coffee because I finally found my cup of tea without needing extra flavors to fall in love with it. 

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From the girl who rambles through life 

All the flavors of the taste palate

A glistening surface reflected just above the piping hot ramen. It almost looked too fine to eat it. He looked at it and as soon the trail of scent floated inside his nostrils, his aura began to slowly cover his whole presence. After the first bite, his pupils seemed to appear bigger and his mouth angles slightly have moved up. When he looked up to me with that satisfying grin on his face, I couldn’t help but smile too. As we continued eating in silence, you could hear his loud slurping and traditional Japanese music playing softly in the background. A soothing state of coziness.

”I can’t believe this is what we are eating for breakfast,” I said with my mouth full. He nodded with the same satisfying grin on his face. We were the only one sitting right behind the counter where the chefs were working, hurriedly moving from left to right and yelling foreign words to each other. The walls were covered with hand-drawed paintings and the menus were also handwritten with black ink with a drawing right next to the description of a dish. The informal setting will make you feel at ease right away and you would found yourself exploring every side of the izakaya by looking around excessively under the dimmed light.

On the other side of the world, we were having authentic Japanese ramen as breakfast – yet it feels like we have been here for a long time already. Food tends to do that to people. Like a magnet, it has the ability to connect even if there is a barrier. Food can bring even strangers together for the time being and unravel stories of each other, making it into a stepping stone to better understanding between people.

”I liked to have a restaurant around this size in the future.” as he looked around him and nodded in himself. ”I don’t need much, as long people enjoy my food.”

As he kept talking about the food and why it is that makes it so delicious – I found myself in awe listening to him. His passion for food and cooking was so contagious that I got suck into his world, into his mind and heart – what makes him tick:

To taste every possible flavor of the taste palate and share that with the rest of the world.

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From the girl who rambles through life 

 

100 words – Be humble like the earth under your feet

Stand tall like Mount Everest

Run wild like a tornado

Leave an impact just like a tsunami

Shine bright like the sunrise

Look delicate like cherry blossoms

Be humble like the earth under your feet

Showing emotions like the falling raindrops

Having endless space for giving and helping like the vast ocean

Let yourself be open minded and think in diversity, just like the rainbow.

Thrive to adapt in every situation like each changing season.

Grow in your own unique way like each different tree

Don’t let others step on you for you may appear soft, but never weak, like the snow. Every now and then, you surprise others with your “cold” side. Let them judge. Let them wonder –

For you are your living your own life, not need to clarify anything, like our universe.

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From the girl who rambles through life 

I wish I had it all

IMG_20170312_132741.jpgSometimes I wish I had it all. Enough time to spend with everyone I care about. Enough money to help those in need. Enough energy to lift those up from the darkness. Enough space in my mind to treasure all my beloved memories, each carefully collected in a untouched place. Enough love for myself to not let resentment consumes me. Enough courage to accept failures & setbacks and to move on with my life. Enough passion to not let anyone’s opinion stop me from what I’m doing.

But maybe it’s okay now how it is, because I’m already enough to begin with and it can only gets better.

From the girl who rambles through life

Are you drifting along with your current?

The sea is vast & fascinating.

Its current changes every single moment.
Delivering goods to the needed. Bringing people to their desired destination. Surviving through severe winters and bright summers. For some, it provides food.
For some, it’s a place to live. A home for countless creatures we still haven’t discovered.
Some fear its unpredictability while some fall in love with it.
Some entertain themselves by surfing its waves.
And there are some who nurture it by cleaning away the dirt.
Its current changes every single moment, for it is adjusting to its environment and season. It’s only natural to have changes in order to grow.

Most importantly, to provide value again – for yourself and others.

How about you?

Are you drifting along with your current?

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From the girl who rambles through life 

100 words – My sweet escape

DSC07011The minute I came home, the first thing I wanted to do was write. I caught myself having this thought more regular than before. I don’t know when exactly it happened, because it feels natural for me to just sit down after a long day and start to write whatever comes up in my mind. It is my moment to reflect. A moment to relax my mind by writing down my wandering thoughts. A form of escaping reality. It is my escape from reality, entering a world with endless unspoken thoughts and emotions. My sweet escape.

From the girl who rambles through life 

100 words – Don’t that to your future children

Surrounded with my three guy friends and a couple of beers and whiskey later, the course of the subject was getting more serious by each sip.

‘’Lately, Brittany has been mentioning about having kids’’, one of them said. I immediately dropped the bomb, ‘’Seriously, you guys are heading that way? I thought it’s going a bit rough now with you two’’.

‘’It is, but she is getting peer pressure. She isn’t worried about her age, because she is still young, but the pressure is getting at her’’.

Wait, what?

That should not be a reason to have a child. Let only when your relationship isn’t even at the most stable point. I have zero knowledge about motherhood, but I can imagine the moment when I decide to take it to the next level, it will come from the desire to bring a living human to this world; to nurture, teach, love and encourage to be — not an extended version of yourselves — but rather an utmost individualist, without the fear having their own beliefs, dreams and hopes. It would certainly not come from ‘’pressure’’.

Don’t do that to your future child. It deserves so much more to be born. Not out of pressure. But out of love.

Always.

From the girl who rambles through life 

100 words – How are you, really?

So, how are you?

I mean not asking in a polite form and expecting you to simply say fine.

How many times you got asked this question, but haven’t felt that you could say the truth?

How many times did you feel the urge to actually state your true feelings, but have stopped yourself from doing it?

As for me, many times.

It already make lots of difference when someone reach out to me when things aren’t going well. Just asking me ‘’how are you, really?’’ take a burden off my shoulders.

We should all reach out to each other from time to time. What may appear fine and good from the surface, may be sinking and merely holding on from the inside.

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From the girl who rambles through life 

100 words – A smiling curve

SONY DSCA smiling curve was always on her face

Until it wasn’t anymore

Maybe the next day then, she thought

But the curve slowly turned into an indifferent, straight line.

She was tired for always keeping it curved.

It no longer bends upwards for the things she used to fake a smile for.

It no longer bends upwards when others expect her to smile.

Instead, it slowly has lost its strength to even keep it straight

Down, down, down

It costs her so much strength to keep it curved again

But when that happens,

She will know.

It is real.

From the girl who rambles through life 

100 words – One decision away

Yesterday, Facebook ‘’reminded’’ me that I’ve been friends for three years with X. She is one of my best friends where I know we both can count on each other, even though we live practically at the other side of the world from each other. I’ve gotten the privilege to know her since that particular day that I have decided to apply for an exchange programme, where we could choose our top five countries where we wanted to study. There were none expectations, since I was convinced I won’t make it into the programme. But life surprises us when we least expect it. Not only did I get in, I even have gotten my first choice!

Looking back now, it still amazed me how one decision led to numerous events which will never even happen at the first place. That day, I wasn’t aware that I took a really important decision in my life.

I was one decision away from major changes in my life. One decision away from getting to know myself way more better than before.

One decision away from life long friendships, traveling around the world, learning to depend on myself and seeking adventure in every corner of the world.

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From the girl who rambles through life