Adib Khorram Spills the Tea

I like following authors’ journeys as the explore life through writing. Being able to experience a young adult writer whose style I’ve become familiar with flex their muscles into nonfiction or into picture books gives me something new, but the same. I build upon the trust I have in their ability to develop a character or create a scene, but now in a very different way. I can only imagine that there’s quite a shift in skills, particularly in moving from YA to picture books; from teens to (probably) a much younger audience, and to a story that is told as much in pictures as it is words—fewer words.

Adib Khorram’s latest book is Tea is Love (Dial; 2025). I first met Adib through Darius the Great is not Okay, a young adult story about a young man of mixed Iranian American and European American heritage who voyages to Iran with his family to visit his terminally ill grandfather. I shouldn’t rely upon my memory here, I so seldom remember details in books, but this detail has stuck with me: in the beginning of the story, Darius works in a tea shop. He’s quite knowledgeable about the process of brewing a good cup of tea, often disagreeing with the shop’s owner. Tea is one of Darius’ passions.

Seven years later, Adib isolates and writes about tea in Tea is Love. The book is vibrantly, lovingly, illustrated by Hanna Cha with illustrations that feed our imagination while Adib’s sparse text fills our hearts. It took me right back to Darius. So, I reached out to Adib to ask if he’d be interested in writing about how tea serves as a memory for him. My goodness, he can write! Memoir next, perhaps?

Go, put the kettle on, and then come back here. This is nice; really nice. Thanks Adib! I wish you all the best with Tea is Love.

I can’t remember the first time I visited my father’s family. I was much too young. All I have are some dim memories of those first childhood trips to Vancouver.

I have vague recollections of my cousins playing Dr. Mario on the NES, shouting at each other in a mixture of Persian and English as they tried to be the last one standing.

I have vague recollections of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup at my uncle’s diner on West Broadway. Of my grandfather sitting at the table, nodding and smiling as he watched his grandchildren playing. “Kheylee khoob,” he’d repeat to himself, tapping his cane on the floor. “Very good.”

I have vague recollections of the kettle in my aunt’s kitchen, which was always on, always steaming, always ready to pour a cup of tea.

As I grew older, my cousins stopped playing Dr. Mario. My uncle sold his diner. My grandfather passed away.

But the kettle is still on.

James Norwood Pratt—America’s tea sage—tells us that every cup of tea is unique: a singular expression of a place, a time, a soil, a history, a moment, a person. Every leaf grows the way it grows, tastes the way it tastes, steeps the way it steeps, because of where it comes from. We call it terroir, French for land, a term wine drinkers use to similarly describe the unique conditions in which a grape is grown.

I sometimes think about my own terroir. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, to an Iranian father and a white American mother, I’ve often felt that my roots were torn in two: firmly in the Missouri soil, but also half a world away in Yazd, my father’s hometown. But terroir is more than just where the tea grows. It’s how much rain falls on it, how much sunlight, how hot and cold it gets. It’s all the seasons that have come before: the hands that have plucked the leaves, the communities that have husbanded the shrubs, the people whose lives are intertwined with the land.

The tea remembers every change, every struggle, because the thing about struggle is, it makes the tea taste better.

I’ve found that the same is true of people. It is our struggles, and how we overcome them, that define us. That make us stronger, more resilient, more loving. More open to compassion and empathy. More dedicated to our communities. More careful to cling to our memories.

At its heart, the practice of drinking tea is a joyful one. Tea enervates us and calms us. Tea asks us for patience and invites reflection.

When I drink tea I remember my grandfather’s laughter. When I drink I remember those nights of Dr. Mario. When I drink I remember my uncle’s diner. When I drink I feel like I’m back at my aunt’s house.

And the kettle is still on.

Adib Khorram grew up in Kansas City, Missouri drinking Persian tea, which is called chāi (چای), but now he drinks all kinds of teas from around the world. Whatever your word for tea, and wherever in the world you are, he lifts his cup to you!

Contact info: adibkhorram.com, @adibkhorram on instagram, @adibkhorram on Bluesky.

Be well and do good!

Filed under: Creators