Tea Time

It's a gloomy Wednesday afternoon in Nagwon in what I suppose is the traditional tea house district in Seoul. I'm sitting in one such establishment. I've got my bluetooth keyboard out, which is connected to my smartphone and I'm hacking away at it like I imagine Mr. Mozart would at the piano. I'm taking a break from reading an eBook from my Kindle to update my blog. A group of middle-aged Korean ladies sat to my left, talking in turns about their vacations and cooking methods. "They say tomatoes are that good for your health." They spit other such facts at each other and I'm witnessing the breeding grounds for folk knowledge. I'm just a fly on the wall as far as they are concerned.

They leave and the vacuum of noise they left is filled with the old folk music filtering through the speakers. I take some sips of this healthy herb tea, which reminds me uncannily of the traditional herbal medicine, or hanyak, that my parents gave me as a child except that this has some floaters in it such as pine nuts and slices of some small obscure fruit. Aside from the bitterness, it goes down smoothly.

I'm on my second cup, thinking about my third. So I ask the lady if they happen to have any matcha green tea. She says that all they have is what's on the menu. She politely tells me that I don't have to order more tea in order to stay.  So I assure her that I enjoy tea and am willing to sit here and try more varieties.

With several hours to kill and a possible sudden downpour at any given moment as it is monsoon season, I thought it would be a good idea to spend a chunk of the day sitting at a traditional tea house to read and write. Most of the people I know in Seoul are working. I happen to be on vacation this week. It's a week before my departure to Jakarta and I figured it would be a good time to spend resting, preparing for my trip, meeting friends and family in the city, reading, writing, and doing just a little bit of prep work for next semester.

Though generally I love being around people, sometimes it's nice to sip tea and gather my thoughts on my own.