No, I said that right the first time,It’s meant to be ‘Steep’ not ‘Sit.’ Yes, STEEP. S T E E P. You know, like steeping a good cuppa? A nice hot British brew? C’mon, really? You seriously got nothing at all? Ahh…

Of course! Gone are the days of classic British Tea-Making techniques aren’t they? This is Murica’ we drink ‘Coffee’.Believe me, I’m not a diddly squat against coffee, I love it. Tea can often be so much better for us, on so many different levels. There are many different types of teas out there, with many different proven, and ‘effective’ benefits for all kinds of symptoms. However, today I would just like to talk about one plain type of tea in general.

BLACK TEA –

• The specific brand in general that I prefer the most is known as England’s #1 Tea, which is called (PG TIPS) as featured in the picture to your left, and above. If you’d like to get some of your own, I have found the greatest deal for you, just click on the image to your left. It’s the best price around, trust me. It is good quality Tea, and worth it.

 

For people with high blood pressure, a large consumption of caffeine is simply not healthy at all. As we know, Coffee has the strongest, and highest amounts of caffeine levels in it among all other caffeinated beverages, including soda. In addition, there are many great tasting teas without any caffeine at all. Well, for those of us who need a little bit of a pick me up in the mornings, a bit of a caffeine can do the trick. Which is why I have chosen Black tea to be my sole choice of drink in the morning. While it is a tea with the most caffeine among it’s kind, It has a significant lower amount of caffeine then a cup of coffee. The darkest, and strongest brew of coffee has almost double the amount of a good cuppa.

Drinking lots of coffee will leave you crashing hard later, while tea will give you a nice boost without the groggy caffeine crash afterwards. Well, enough with all this, I’m sure most of you reading this right now are getting quite bored with my talks of tea aren’t you? I’m not entirely finished yet, but I will take a moment to explain.

Today, I would like to teach y’all how to make a classic, and proper cuppa British Tea. Which not even all, most, or possibly any British people even drink, and know how to make, or even care about it anymore, but I do. In the process of this, I would also like to help you learn how a good cuppa, and a good relationship with Christ, can go hand in hand. Please, for a moment do just bear with me. Furthermore, you see my friends, the term ‘Steep’ means to ‘soak’  a kind of something (most likely tea leaves) in hot water. The longer it steeps, the stronger it will soon become.

Let’s start with step one of making a proper cuppa British Tea. (Taught to me from a Youtube Video I found by a British Tea-Making Master himself)

Step 1:

Fill the Kettle with water, (YES an ACTUAL Kettle) not some sort of modern age coffee pot hot water heater/ boiler metal/plastic machine thing. Why use a Kettle instead of something else? Something else like one of those little hot water heaters on the side of your coffee pot? Not because it’s wrong. No, It’s OK to do that, I’ve done it, but the results are not the same as they are when you boil the water yourself until the little tea pot screams like a wild bob-cat in the wilderness. Whichever one seems more appealing to you, it’s your choice. When the tea isn’t as strong or bold, and It appears to be weaker, I believe it’s because those little water heaters do not get the water as hot as your stove top burner can. I’ve never used one of those electric kettle’s, but I know that many real live British people have, and it seems to work fine. Me, I’ll just use what I have.

How can this relate you to Christ in anyway? Through studying God’s word, a good cuppa, and a good bible verse should go hand in hand. Nowadays, you see, too many churches have become too modernized.This is coming from someone who should embrace the modernism!. Everyone wants an easier, and faster way to do things. As a result, with easy, and with fast you end up with weak, and feeble Spiritual influence. It takes time to become good, and strong in God. As it takes time with a good cuppa, as anything good takes time. Back to the tea, if you are making a pot of tea for 6 people, then you want to have 6 ounces of water per person which would be a little over 36 ounces of water.

Set that to boil.

Note: *For those of you who want your tea to be extra ‘British-y’ OR to stay hot longer while it’s setting all by it’s lonesome in the pot. First, just boil a kettle of water, then pour it into the teapot covering it, and let it set a few minutes while you start your measured amount of water to boil, and then pour out that water, and place the lid back on.*

Step 2:

Once the water has boiled, either place your tea leaves into the pot or your tea bags. Then, you want to have one teaspoon of tea leaves per person, and one teaspoon for the pot to make it stronger to your taste. Once your tea leaves/bags are properly placed, that is when you will pour the hot water OVER them evenly. Then, cover it with the lid, and let it steep for at least 5 minutes exactly, not a second more, or a second less. This step is crucial to achieve the perfect, and utmost proper cuppa. The reason being is this, as we learned earlier in this post, the longer the tea steeps/soaks in the hot water, the stronger and bolder it will get.

So, it is the same with us, and Christ! How, you ask? The longer we steep/soak (STUDY) In His Word, the stronger, and bolder for Christ we will become! It is true! The more we root ourselves in His Word, the more likely we are to stand strongly, and boldly for His truth. Yet, at the same time, we cannot allow ourselves to steep/soak/study too long. Yes, It can be too much sometimes, and even the Bible can be a bad thing. Please, don’t get it twisted. Moreover, the reason for timing your tea’s steeping process is so crucial to the tea-making process.

If the tea steeps for a minute longer then it is supposed to, it will likely become too bitter for your tasting. There is a great difference in being strong, bold, and bitter. Strong, it’s good, it is what you look for in a good British cuppa. Bold is also good, but bitter is not. Bitter is not strength, bitter is not bold, and it can go the other way as well. Bold isn’t bitter, and strength is not bitter either. Sometimes many people will study themselves out of God’s truth, completely ignoring His truths, and convincing themselves that they don’t even matter anymore.

Then there are those who study to the point that they think they know it all, and one could not ever know it all. Therein lies your reasons why studying too much can often be a bad thing. As long as you study with a humble heart, you can get as much of His Word as you like without ever going down these dark paths. That’s just the thing though, to read His Word, one must read it with an open, and humbled heart. Otherwise, you can also become downright haughty, and bitter to all the world around. You’ll be consumed with wanting to save the world, and in your mind you may think that your reasoning’s are right, but in your heart you will have forgotten the most important thing of all, LOVE.

Truth – Love – Boldness

It’s a phrase that I’ve been preaching constantly. You can be a Bold and Strong Christian for Christ without ever losing one ounce of LOVE or Truth. The Modern day churches are so consumed with the concept of  ‘love, love, love’ these days. And not without entire biblical ground. But missing parts of the bible nevertheless. Love is a huge and sole part of the bible and it is the foundation of Grace and everything we hold dear and primarily what Christ stands for. But not entirely.

If there is Love without condemnation of sin, then there is no love at all. Christ spoke boldly and he did so in love. In the scripture that many modern day believers like to quote where he said he did not come to condemn the world but to save it, he goes on to say that the world is already condemned if it does not believe in him and to believe in him is to turn away from your sins and commit yourself to him.

Therefore, one can have a strong, bold tasting cuppa, without having that bitter aftertaste. It just takes time, patience and a little bit of humbling of yourselves to take a slower, harder path. Because the easy way, isn’t necessarily the best way. Nor the fast way, or the most accepted way.

Finally, we find ourselves at the final step.

Step 3:

Once your tea has steeped for the proper time, remove your teabags, or if you chose to use loose tea leaves, then use a strainer to pour your cuppa, but not so fast, there is still a few more things to be done. If you like cream in your tea (which for a perfect cuppa is desired, but not required) you will want to take this moment to put a small amount of creamer into your cup.

That’s right! Put the cream (in) your cup BEFORE you pour the tea. The reason for this being is many, but the most believable is this, It is said that back in the day, common-folk who did not have much money couldn’t afford sturdy cups. The fragile cups would break, and crack when the hot liquid would be poured into it, so to keep this from happening they added creamer to the cup beforehand. Whatever the reason, all these seemingly ‘silly’ tea-making steps are what truly helps you to achieve the utmost proper cuppa.

Finally, sit down, and enjoy your nice hot cuppa with some lumps of sugar, or sugar cubes, or even a natural sugar free sweetener. With a friend, or by yourself early in the morning, or late in the evening to warm you up, have a hot cuppa of tea. As a result, the hot cuppa of tea will settle you down, or cheer you up all while digesting one of your favorite biblical passages.

In Conclusion:

Coffee Or Tea? (Just for the sake of today’s blog post, not for the rest of your life. I, myself still enjoy a nice hot cup of dark roasted coffee). As an experiment for this bog post, tell me in the comment section. Which will you go have yourself right now? Coffee, or Tea? It’s just fine, and dandy if you choose coffee over tea, that is your choice. I’d still like to know, and along with it, I would like to know why. My reasoning of writing this post was not to persuade you into drinking black tea over coffee for the rest of your lives, I could never hope to do that in my wildest dreams.

My true purposes for writing this blog was to simply explain the importance of how a strong relationship with Christ is like a good cuppa tea. Christ said He would prefer that we be hot, or we be cold. I enjoy iced cold sweet tea like any other southerner, and I most definitely enjoy a nice hot cuppa black tea. When my tea is lukewarm, it’s very distasteful, and it causes me to spew it out. Just as Christ will spew us out as it is written in the book of Revelation 3:16, So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.
. Make your stand with God, be on fire for Christ, be strong, bold, and robust in His truths. You can do so without having one ounce of bitterness in you. Because, it’s who we are called to be. My family, and I by many of our relatives, including my mom have been called us bitter for the stands we take on God’s truths.  Those who truly know us best, truly know me best, they know better.

With my all the pain my Mother has chosen to cause me throughout my life, and even with all the hatred my family, and I have received from our relatives, I, myself have chosen to be better, not bitter. Furthermore, nothing can or ever will break me. I will only continue to grow stronger in Christ,so when the fire comes, I’ll be ready. As I always am, as we all should let ourselves be, because those who come to harm us wish to see us destroyed, and wish to see us turned into something utterly disgusting, and pitiful, damaged by the flames.

However, we will use the flames to our advantage, we will come out better, stronger, and more praising of God then ever. Why? Because, we will come through, and how can we not praise God for bringing us through? People ask me why I believe like I do. The answer is very simple, I have seen what faith does, and to think what I’ve seen is just a small taste. It is a small fraction of how big, and mighty our God is. That should excite us all.

Until next time my good friends, God bless y’all.

SHALOM –