Tea is a blessing. The American satirist, Michael Moore, once made an episode of his “TV Nation” programme where he looked to resolve the territorial issues of the Balkans by dividing up a huge pizza. Much easier would have been just to put on the kettle.
Tea is blessed. In the case of Tea2you at Borough Market, literally so. Every year, a thanksgiving at Southwark Cathedral for some first flush of Darjeeling newly stocked there. For 2026, Bishop Christopher Chessun and the Rev. Canon Michael Dawson, the sub dean, are at hand, with Tea2You’s Mondal family. As in Ratan and Debapriya Mondal, with their daughter, Rusha. Celebrated is everything that goes into a cup of what has the ability to “calm, strengthen, and comfort, as well as cheer us”. The words from A Song of Seven Cups by Lú Tóng are recited. By the end of this one hopes an eighth is not out the question. Rusha certainly deserves this for speaking so eloquently at the ceremony. Such assuredness is an added challenge when alongside pastors who preach perhaps every day.
Before the tea is blessed the bishop bought some bread. Add some fishes and we would have had all that’s needed for a miracle. Except this is not a day for such glib and facetious thoughts. Not within 24 hours of the ninth anniversary when in 2017 three men drove across London Bridge in a transit van then abandoned the vehicle to wreak havoc in the market. In all eight innocent bystanders died, from the UK, France, Australia, Canada, and Spain. As Lú Tóng’s verse maintains, the sixth of the lyric’s seven cups is to “commune with the immortals”. May all who passed continue to rest in peace.
When Borough Market reopened after that tragedy, Bishop Chessun blessed the perimeter and everything within. At the centre of this remain tea, with Tea2you, for 19 years now. The Lord’s Prayer concludes the Darjeeling blessing. Like bread, tea is a daily pleasure. Especially on this day. And the next. And the ones after that. Count your blessings…
These words are from me as Tea2You’s writer in residence. With this honour I am greatly blessed.
— Colin Cameron
Writer in Residence