Hoogly Blogs / Winter

Daily Rituals

Daily Rituals

Hello all!! March is finally here, and with that comes the knowledge winter is drawing to a close. I say knowledge rather than awareness because you wouldn’t think it from this weather!
This winter has made me think a lot about the mechanisms we use in our day to day lives to cope with fast changing events. I was recently reading ‘Thousand Cranes’, by Yasunari Kawabata, a beautiful novel in which the narrator describes the various relationships he has had across his life, and his attempt to come to terms with the inherent uncertainty which comes from relationships. Set against a backdrop of Post World War Two Japan, it evolves to become a tale of how to cope with the broader changes and uncertainties which came from the latter half of the 20th century. Kawabata develops this meaning very slowly, almost without you even noticing, utilising prose that evokes a portrait of quiet , micro-emotions, whether that be happiness, yearning, or even despair.

Among the strongest of relationships that the narrator has, and what drew me first to the novel, is with that of the Japanese matcha tea ritual, which becomes a symbol for the uncertainty present throughout the text. As the novel progresses, the narrator becomes disheartened by the power both himself and those around him place upon the ceremony. What follows is a novel driven by its characters' use of, and indeed, reliance upon, rituals. Rituals become a symbol of solace but also of a removal from the everyday reality which comes from uncertainty. A performative way to reject existence without finding any meaning in that rejection. It is this which I think of first when I am forced to think of my own rituals; funny, old fashioned sounding things, passed down from parent to parent. Presents before or after food at Christmas. A Roast Dinner only allowed on Sunday.

As I think more about these rituals though, it becomes clear to me that while they may very well be pointless, they are also pivotal to our relationship with those events. As soon as I try and imagine Christmas with presents in the order I don’t expect them, a cold dread fills me. It may not matter, of course it doesn't, but I can’t change how it makes me feel. The beauty of Kawabata’s novel is that there is also power which comes from rituals. They are

simultaneously a marker of the most important and also of the most superficial aspects of the world.

Following on from this, I believe that rituals represent the small parts of our individual lives which keep us tethered to our sense of self in an increasingly discordant world. Inter connectivity might be all anyone ever talks about. We have all doom scrolled around the horrors of social media and of the decline of the high street. But while we don’t all need to be shaking our fists and railing against technical progress, which has really been quite beneficial to all of our lives, we do need to remember certain things. As everything becomes more and more interconnected, our bodies swept along into vast neurological networks, it seems like we all do need to keep something that is entirely our own. To me, rituals are the tiny, almost inconsequential things which invert my life from that network. They are my own, established not in laboratories or dictated to me through instruction Manuals. Little things, perhaps irrational, which I have gathered from my own praxis, with the only end in sight being my own sense of peace. It is important, I think, to stop us from becoming entirely caught up in efficiency and time-management. Sometimes it's good to do things a bit slow, a bit silly.

For better or for worse then, rituals are an integral part of how we cope with the world. Of Course we at Hoogly cannot offer quite such a ritual, but I think there is something in our message which attempts to construct some sense of ritual back into life. I walk into the kitchen to make myself a cup. Danish pastry I think this time. I measure out the tea, place it in the teapot, pour water at the correct temperature, turn over the timer, and wait. I then pour out the tea into a cup. Drinking it slowly I think of other things I do, other repetitive acts which I really don’t need to do in quite such elaborate detail, but which I do anyway, and which, when I do them , make me feel a whole lot better. I always walk in a circle to work and back home. There is no requirement as to which way I walk, in fact it changes daily. But if I walk one direction in then I have to walk the other way back. I can’t really think why but I know that it helps. I hope you all go and make a cup of tea after reading this, and as you make it,

think of all the little things you do each day which made this winter not just bearable, but enjoyable.

Written by Euan Reid

www.hooglytea.com

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A Hoogly Year!

A Hoogly Year!

Is it me, or is it cold? Properly, bitterly, unacceptably freezing. The summer heatwave now seems like a bad joke, some distant dream involving t-shirts, Magnums and sleeping without a duvet. This morning it was the sort of temperature where getting out of bed seems like a direct contravention of my basic human rights; the sort of temperature where it wouldn’t be ridiculous to wear every single item of your clothing and ride a huskie sled to work. My greyhound has the right idea: he pokes his long nose out of the back door, assesses the climate, and promptly goes back to bed. His canine senses are telling him to prioritise survival over the comfort of his bladder or the filling of his tummy. If I suggest a walk, he looks at me as if I’ve just ripped up his favourite toy in front of him and binned his box of treats. So, we go back to bed, with a warm mug of Hoogly, of course, and wait for the sun to do its thing.

But this time of year is not all bad: we get to have some spooky fun with Halloween (big shout out to the Netflix series ‘The Haunting of Hill House,’ a brilliant story of families and ghosts to get you in the mood for the dark winter to come) In case you’re wondering, my Halloween costume this year will be a hibernating bear. If someone could kindly bring me some trick-or-treat chocolate to my cave, that would be splendid, thank you.

After Halloween we move to Bonfire Night. This is a truly Hoogly celebration, a way to get friends and family together all dressed up in cosy coats, scarves and fluffy socks. It’s a night for icy breath and wellington boots, of mesmerising orange flames and kaleidoscopic firework displays, of burgers and hotdogs with lashings of sauce. Unless it rains, in which case it’s a bit rubbish. But don’t worry you’ve always got a mug of our delightfully Danish tea to sustain you through the unpredictable weather.

And once we’ve navigated November, we move onto the serious stuff. The word that cannot be mentioned. The all-encompassing stress-monster. The jingling bells and familiar songs. The swathes of shoppers elbowing and bumping each other as they cross items their giraffe’s neck list. The day of gorging and regret, punctuated by the giving and receiving of gifts, and the repeat of a good film.

If you survive the-word-that-cannot-be-mentioned, you’ll then find yourself in January, a month of violent introspection and urgent self-improvement, with military-level supplies of fruit and veg stocked up to compliment our new regime of exercise, which we carry out in a manner that suggests we’re being chased down by a monster. Which is why our regime only really lasts until mid-January, February at best. Plus, we’re a bit hungry. For something other than carrots and quinoa.

And then it’s summer again, possibly another heatwave, beaches rammed with the same people who were brawling for presents in December, but this time with less clothes and more burnt skin and beer. At least you can go to work and come home again in daylight—which does improve the working day by 4-5% (the same percentage as getting a free coffee from the barista or discovering that the boss you dislike is off sick.) This is not quite as big as the 12-13% improvement in a working day when you are allowed to punch out early, especially if it’s a Friday and your extra free time bleeds into a weekend. As Mickey Flanagan says, we’re going out out! The list of things that make a working day worse are too long—and the percentages too big—to mention here, but we all know what they are. We’ll choose to ignore them in a burst of Hoogly mindfulness.

To summarise this rant, I would like to say that every season, every day, every moment is improved incalculably by flipping on the kettle and popping in one of our Hoogly tea bags. Bad moods, bad days, bad luck and bad bananas will fall away as you discover our tantalising variety of finely crafted treats, each designed to bring the cosy comfort of Hygge into your life, allowing you to become the centre of attention, the full focus of your relaxation, stripping away stress and strains as if they never existed. Whether you’re a traditionalist, an experimenter, a sweet-tooth or a smooth operator, there is something in our shop for everyone. You may even find the perfect gift for December, and it’s all just a couple of cosy clicks away!

Written by Chris Bedford

www.hooglytea.com

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