Meet my grandpa on my mom’s side 🙂

My grandpa is a creature of habit. He grew up in Taiwan when it was being occupied by Japan, and he was in the military there for several years, which, I think, formed his personality quite a bit. He is very disciplined and prefers to have things the same every single day. Dinner is always at 6. He no longer drinks beer unless it’s a “celebration”, though, in his youth, he could outdrink any of them. He always has lunch at 12, followed by a nap at 1pm. Then he wakes up and watches the news upstairs for a bit before heading downstairs to make his own tea. It’s been many years since I have watched my grandpa make tea, but I was still just as fascinated by the process as I was as a little girl. He makes tea in a very careful, methodical way, just like he does everything. He starts by setting a kettle of water to boil on an inductive stove. While he’s waiting for it to boil, he cleans out the little teapot, which holds the tea leaves from the day before.

Then he uses these beautiful wooden tools that my uncle bought him to scoop tea leaves into the teapot. He uses the little tea cup to measure the amount.

Then he preps the teapot, which involves pouring boiling water into it and then pouring the first two batches out into the bowl that the teapot then floats in throughout the entire tea-making process. I forgot to ask why he does this, other than to keep the tea warm! Once the leaves have been rinsed twice, he pours tea into the smaller cup, which is then poured into the big cup. Two small cup to a big cup! He made a cup for me as well and insisted that I drink it the same way he does. First, you hold the little cup that was used to pour the tea into the bigger cup up to your nose and smell it. I was amazed by how much of the tea scent remained in the cup. Only after smelling the little cup are you allowed to drink tea out of the big one 😉

Those toothpicks there? He uses those to count how many cups of tea he has had, to make sure he doesn’t go over his limit. He told me that he’s older now, so he can’t just keep drinking tea until he wants to stop!

I loved watching my grandpa enjoy his tea!