The beginning of a new year is often a time for reflection. For me, reflection and tea go hand and hand. I’m sitting here with my favorite green tea of the month, looking out into the forest with snow dancing from the sky. I don’t want to worry that the formal New Year’s 
Eve party we’re scheduled to attend may be cancelled this evening. It will be if it’s meant to be. Those in the Pacific Northwest are a hearty bunch and I doubt we’ll let snow interrupt the festivities. If the universe has other plans, however, a blazing fire and our most treasured tea will be happily consumed in our pajamas. My husband and I have a ritual of writing our prayers and blessings on a sacred sheet of paper and placing it into the fire. I look forward to that process of reviewing the past and welcoming the future.
This has been a challenging year for many around the world. The recent tragic events in Connecticut have shaken this country to its core. The senseless slaughter of 20 little souls is painful to contemplate. Why must we allow such horrors to occur before we make the necessary changes in our policies to prevent this from happening again?
Let us raise our cups of tea in remembrance of all who’ve been lost to us personally and those sisters and brothers around the globe whose spirits no longer reside on this earth.
I am grateful to each and every visitor to T Ching, our remarkable guest contributors who have supported us through the years, and our tireless and creative staff whose efforts are responsible for bringing new content to T Ching Monday through Friday, year after year. May you and your loved ones be blessed with vibrant health and abundant joy in the New Year. My deepest wish is that we will all live to see the day when peace will surround the globe.
Our best wishes for Tching team – the people who taught us to write about tea – Sandy’s personal visit to this tea city of Siliguri woke us up to the world of tea writers and tea blogs..a very happy and successful 2013 to all the tea writers on Tching..
Thank you, Michelle and Sandy, for having the foresight to create T Ching, and thank you, Rajiv, and all our other contributors for the wonderful posts that inform, entertain, teach, and otherwise allow us all to appreciate the multi-faceted world of tea! Finally, thank you, Ryan, Dan, Zach, Alex, and Mark, without whom, T Ching would come to a screeching halt!
Rajiv – I will always treasure the time I spent in Siliguri with you and your wonderful family, and the trip to Darjeeling. It was a great pleasure and honor to be a part of such a joyous event and share in Dolly’s wedding. I thank you for all your help and support over the years and wish you and your family a wonderful 2013.
To all our partners, contributors and readers, Michelle and I consider it a blessing that you have all been a part of our lives and been the most important part of what makes tching.com so special. Thank you one and all. We hope that 2013 brings you the best of what life has to offer.
thanks for your moving words Sandy..you have been a source of inspirations for us simply because of you not being a tea professional but still so closely connected to tea..let us look forward to a better and better Tching which is becoming a source of spreading the massage of tea to the consumers of tea in a new market where a revolution is setting up by most modern ideas of branding and blending to enhance the values of teas…