Nothing About Tea

I poured myself a cup of tea. Steam billowed from my mug as I drizzled in just a touch of honey, its sweetness swirling into the dark amber liquid. Truth be told, I hadn’t even glanced at the teabag I’d grabbed—it hardly mattered. What did matter was tea itself, a subject I needed to contemplate. After all, it was Saturday morning, my sacred time to write. My demanding 9-to-5 left little room for creativity during the week, but the weekends were mine. They were when I could finally settle in, let my thoughts flow, and bring ideas to life on the digital page.

I flipped open my laptop and navigated to Reedsy's website. This week’s prompt centered around tea—a drink I appreciated but didn’t favor. Coffee was more my speed, bold and bracing, but there was something undeniably refined about tea, especially in the quiet of the morning. A good cup of tea eased you into wakefulness, unlike coffee, which tended to jolt you into consciousness with a slap.

I took slow sips…tasted like Earl Grey. Not a bad choice for a random tea bag tossed into a mug of hot water. Time slipped through my fingers, and my laptop screen remained an expanse of white, the blank Word document staring back at me like an unspoken challenge. The relentless blink of the cursor was no longer a gentle nudge—it was taunting me. A mild sense of frustration began to ferment beneath the surface.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. What did I really know about tea anyway? Maybe that was a good place to start.

I opened my browser and typed: "The Origins of Tea."

My search pulled me deep into history, tracing tea’s beginnings back to ancient China. The stories were rich, the traditions fascinating, and before I knew it, the morning had slipped away. I had absorbed a trove of historical and cultural facts, yet still—no spark, no inspiration. My mind remained as blank as the page before me.

By now it was lunchtime. I had been glued to my laptop for hours. The page remained stubbornly blank, no ideas, no inspiration, just mounting frustration. Why was this so difficult? Usually my problem wasn’t a lack of ideas but an abundance of them. I was always sifting through multiple hastily typed outlines attempting to choose the best one and run with it. But today? Today was different. Today my creativity had abandoned me.

I reopened Reedsy and stared at the prompts once more. This shouldn’t be this hard.

"A man walks into a bar and orders a cup of tea..."

An idea flickered to life within me, a tiny spark cutting through the haze of my writer’s block. This was how my stories often began—a random thought and a random concept rising like a half-remembered childhood memory. One moment it was nothing; the next, I was breathing life into it, molding it into something real. Whether it turned out good or bad was beside the point. I had never struggled to put words on the page…not until now.

I decided to step away for a bit, giving my mind a chance to reset. Maybe a hot bowl of ramen would help clear the fog. I made the short, brisk walk to my truck, the cold air biting at my cheeks as I climbed in. The five-minute drive to the local ramen shop felt like a small reset button in itself. There was something about the simplicity of it—savoring that steaming bowl of noodles—that had a way of untangling the knots in my mind.

An hour later I was back home, my stomach full and my head surprisingly clear. The energy was flowing again, as if the warmth from the meal had spread into my thoughts. I sat back down at my laptop, fingers poised over the keys. Something clicked. The idea that had been hovering on the edge of my consciousness was starting to take shape. There was more to it than I’d realized—a deeper cavern beneath the surface. Eager to dig in, I delved straight into the heart of the story, ready to uncover where it would lead.

Just as the spark of motivation ignited, a notification from my phone pulled me back to reality. A close friend was confirming our plans for next weekend. My attention shifted in an instant, the pull of the message breaking my focus.

Rob: So I managed to pick up courtside tickets.

Me: Seriously??? How did you pull that off???

Rob: My boss has season tickets. Guess he couldn’t make it. Just happened to be in the right place and time. 

Me: OMG dude this is great! I can’t wave! 

Rob: umm lol ok

Me: Autocorrect hates me :/

Rob: :wave: 

Me: lol thanks

What was supposed to be a quick text turned into a full-blown meme war, thanks to Rob sending me a string of waving memes. As it always does with close friends, the image-based banter spiraled out of control in no time. Before I knew it I was laughing at ridiculous memes instead of focusing on my work. Finally, I threw my phone onto the couch in defeat and made the fatal mistake—launching Netflix.

My idea began to fester in my mind. A man walks into a bar and orders tea? It sounded too cliche. Now all I could think of were tired punchlines: A guy walks into a bar…

No matter, maybe just catching up on a few shows and relaxing was the way to go. Maybe it was a lost cause. Perhaps the best course of action was to take a break and let inspiration find me.

Brilliant plan. Now it was 11:30 p.m., and somehow, I had demolished an entire bag of popcorn. The evening had blurred past in a haze of mindless entertainment. And just like that, my Saturday had nearly vanished.

"Good job, champ," I muttered to myself. Another wasted page in the book of days.

But if there was one thing I prided myself on, it was my stubbornness—and the day wasn’t over yet.

With renewed determination, I sat back down at my laptop. The blank digital canvas stared back at me, almost daring me to fill it.

Without thinking, I just started writing. At first, it was nothing more than scattered phrases of frustration—disjointed thoughts spilling onto the page. But soon, those phrases turned into sentences, and those sentences began to take shape. There was no rhyme or reason at first, no clear direction, just movement. Then, out of nowhere, an opening appeared.

It wasn’t the breakthrough I had been searching for, but for the first time all day, I could see light at the end of the tunnel. Something clicked, and suddenly I was writing furiously, barely pausing for breath. An hour passed in a blur, and when I finally stopped, I realized what I had just done—I had written a crucial passage in my book. For weeks I had struggled to tie the ending together, unable to see how all the pieces fit. But in that single hour, I not only wrote a few pages, but I also outlined the entire conclusion of my story.

Leaning back in my chair, I stretched triumphantly. Victory. Not the one I had set out to achieve, and certainly not the one I had expected, but a victory nonetheless. The weight of frustration lifted, replaced by a deep sense of relief. Writing rarely goes as planned, and today had been proof of that. What had started as a failed attempt to make progress had instead become one of the most productive writing sessions I’d had in months.

Yet, one question still lingered in my mind—what about this week’s Reedsy prompt? Other than drinking my morning cup of tea, I had neither personal connection nor compelling inspiration to write about tea.

Or maybe I did? I smiled and let out a chuckle. Ah, but this whole day I’d been drafting my story. Opening a new Word document, I began typing my story:

“I poured myself a cup of tea.”