Outdoor Tea Breaks: My Quiet Remedy for Information Noise

Choosing Quiet Over Noise

Last time, in She Works Only One and a Half Days a Week: Notes from a Photographer’s Talk, I shared what I saw at an offline event. But the truth is, as a 38-year-old, most of the time I would rather stay quietly by myself, far away from the information noise of phones and computers.

Table, Chair, and a Kettle in the Trunk

I drive a small SUV — a Toyota C-HR — and I am fond of this little car. In the trunk I keep a folding table, chairs, and the rest of a light camping kit. A few kilometers from my home there is an outdoor campsite where people drive in to pitch tents and barbecue on ordinary days. I used to pitch tents too, but eventually it felt like too much fuss. Simpler is better: nowadays I carry nothing but the table and the chairs.

Folding table and chair set up outdoors at a campsite, with a tea set ready for brewing — The whole setup: one table, one chair, one kettle

Finding the Tea That Suits Your Body

We Chinese love our tea, and there are many varieties — but because they differ in fermentation level and theine (tea alkaloid) content, the tea that suits each person is different. When I drink white tea, for example, I get heart palpitations and a stomach ache: white tea carries more theine, and my body simply cannot take it. Black tea gives me no trouble at all. And my favorite is fermented Pu’er — its flavor is deep and full, and after fermentation the theine is minimal, so it barely irritates the body at all. It drinks down very comfortably, and it is said to help trim body fat as well.

Hot Pu'er tea being poured into a cup at an outdoor table beside the car — Hot Pu’er in the open air

Sitting back in a chair at the campsite, tea steaming on the folding table, trees in the background — Feet up, cup full, phone silent

Away from phone and computer, out in the sunshine, leaning back in the chair with a cup of hot Pu’er and the breeze on your face — that is what enjoyment actually feels like.

On Anxiety and Comparison

As I see it, most of the anxiety people carry today is stirred up by scrolling social media. The brain is already overloaded with online information. All this talk of “career success” and “wealth” does not necessarily inspire us — for an ordinary person, it can just as easily breed a habit of comparison that exceeds one’s own means.

Some people are born owning everything; others exhaust a lifetime of effort and may still end up with nothing. Perhaps each life is set from the start, and nothing can be forced. The skill worth learning is to calmly accept your own ordinariness.

                        One-line takeaway: put the phone down, brew the tea your body likes, and let the breeze do the scrolling.
                    

Away from screens, a single cup of tea can hold an entire afternoon.