The vast majority of students will tell you they need caffeine to live. Waiting until 4am in the morning to even begin tomorrow's 3000 word assignment requires a rather large amount of the stuff and the easiest and probably most popular way of getting it is through tea. Tea for a student is, well especially in my case, often breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner and dessert. Students read, write and live with a small paper cup filled with warm fresh tea glued to their hand. Written in The Book of Tea tells of tea's spiritual assets "The 15th Century saw Japan ennoble tea into a religion of aestheticism- Teaism. Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life" In light of Teaism which seems to present the search for beauty in everyday life, I propose that for a student Tea becomes that beauty, that little light at the end of the tunnel. 


Tea is usually accompanied by it's small, round, delicious friend; The biscuit. This combination of dunking a biscuit into tea in such a way as to make sure it absorbs some of the tea but not to much to loose it's rigidity has become a powerful tool of procrastination for many students. However as seen by Sussex University's "Tea and Cake Society" people do take Tea seriously. These students created their society to be a place where people who enjoy sitting down and drinking tea can meet, a place where everyone has a space to relax and enjoy the 'little things' in life, as Teaism suggests we should do. As  Ajahn Brahm writes in Who ordered this truckload of dung: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's difficulties "there is always something we can do with the ingredients of our day, even if that something is just sitting down, enjoying our last cup of tea" (119) For students I think tea has become not only a staple food, but also something that allows you to relax and stay calm. Although Tea is enjoyed by many it is my firm belief that for students it has become that 'little something' that could make or break a day, without the joy of a cup of tea who knows how happy students would really be!?