Do you ever begin to feel tired and have difficulty focusing on your creative projects as the afternoon wears on?

In the late afternoon when I begin to feel my creative energy take a nosedive, I pause from my writing projects to enjoy tea time with my family. This is a tradition passed down to us from my British grandmother.

She saw afternoon tea as just as important a time in the day as breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I remember a conversation I once had with her when she was telling me about her experiences as a child in London during WWII.

Her family eventually sent her to the countryside during the Blitz, but she remembered before that how they would sit together in an Anderson shelter in their neighbor’s yard. She told me they put the kettle on before heading to the shelter. When the kettle whistled, one of her sisters dashed to the kitchen to prepare the tea and brought it back to the shelter.

Clearly, not even a war could come between a Londoner and her tea. The tea must have helped my grandmother cling to a sense of calm and normalcy as she waited out the air-raid warning.

In fact, when I did a little digging into the benefits of tea, I discovered that thanks to a special ingredient, tea really does relax you. Additionally, because it has less caffeine than coffee, it doesn’t cause caffeine jitters that mess with your focus and concentration. But it does give you a boost of creative energy. 

Maybe this is why so many of us writers like to drink a cup of tea while we are writing.

Read on to discover several of the famous writers who loved tea and how tea can improve your health and enhance your creativity. [Read more…]