A Tea Reader by Katrina Avilla Munichiello

Author:Katrina Avilla Munichiello
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-4629-0021-3
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

Unfurled

BY DHEEPA MATURI

Have you watched—really watched—your tea leaves steeping in your cup? At one time in my life, I would not have stopped long enough to do such a thing. During that time, I was a lawyer and a mother and a wife, and I barely paused to eat, much less contemplate the goings-on in a tea cup.

And yet, one day, that’s what I did.

One evening, I sat down to tea with a good friend. I remember that I snatched that time out of my schedule, because she was soon relocating to another state. During our conversation, I reached into a tin of silken sachets and felt the lovely little bags slide and slip over my fingers. I placed one in a tea cup, poured boiling water over it, and then inhaled the scent of green leaves harvested from rich, fertile soil. And I watched those leaves, watched them swell with hot water and then twist and unfurl.

As I watched, I suddenly felt alone in the room. In that strange silence, I recognized that so much was swelling and twisting within my own head and heart that something inside me was ready to unfurl. I still recall that moment of stillness and clarity as the birth of my tea company and my own rebirth as an entrepreneur.

I was a lifelong tea drinker, but tea drinking certainly hadn’t prepared me for tea entrepreneurship. After that evening, a great deal of research, learning, and work lay ahead of me. Those challenges, however, did not compare to the difficulty of foregoing my professional identity as a lawyer. In return for those hours of legal paperwork and drudgery, I had received instant respect and regard from my peers and my family. There was a feeling of belonging, of knowing my role in life. There was a feeling of security, of knowing where the long (although dull) hours were leading.

I had stepped off a sturdy platform that was reinforced with certainty and credibility. Without the knowledge base and experience to which I was accustomed, I felt alone and disoriented. Slowly—very slowly—I began to learn the ropes, immerse myself in a new industry, and lay the groundwork for a new company. I learned a great deal, very rapidly. And I found out quickly that counseling a business is entirely different from building an enterprise from the ground up.

Each step produced many new issues to handle. And each new issue required time and research and effort. I struggled to ignore the naysayers, the people who expressed astonishment about my choices and pessimism about my prospects. I grappled with recurring feelings of uncertainty and self-doubt. I experienced frustration, concern, and worry.…

And exhilaration.

After years of dragging myself out of bed in the morning, I was now leaping to start my days. After years of counseling caution and conservative steps, I was pushing through my own intense risk aversion. After years of limiting my professional interactions to the minimum necessary to complete the tasks at hand, I was expanding my networks assertively and finding people of varied voices, backgrounds, and visions.

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