“Everyone has a start-of-the-day ritual, and mine is watching the tea leaves unfurl”

From an essay, by Tash Aw, titled “The Rituals of Tea,” in the book, How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors:

Everyone has a start-of-the-day ritual, and mine is watching the tea leaves unfurl. Later in the morning and throughout the day I make more tea. A couple of good paragraphs may be celebrated by expensive tea drunk from decent cups, while a slump in creativity might lead to an elaborate multi-stage tea-brewing process that takes a half an hour: sip, decide it’s not good enough, throw away, start again. And again.

On the days when the tea is flat and sightly bitter I knew the writing process will be similar. But sometimes, on a particularly good day, I am able to look into my tea bowl and see floating duckweed at the beginning of time. Honestly.