Drinking tea just for the health benefits is like having sex just for the exercise.

There is something about tea that sometimes inspires one to think about sex. Perhaps it’s the hot, steaming liquid, or the sensuous, complex flavors that bathe the tongue and slip down your throat. Maybe it’s the aromatic smell of the tea – firing up your senses as the natural and earthy scents reach your nose, unconsciously turning on more primal urges. Maybe it’s the elemental nature, the combination of earth, fire and water captured in a cup in that you hold in your hand, close to your face. It might be the steam, wafting over your cheeks, warming and moistening your skin. Maybe it’s not the tea at all.

Sharing tea is one of the best aspects of drinking it. A teapot, two cups and a lover is a combination of pleasures that is difficult to match. It lends itself freely to romance. The clean flavors, the way it refreshes your mouth and warms your lips. Conversations over tea can easily turn into flirtation. Tea even allows you to kiss between sips.

Coffee drinkers are portrayed as sexy, but that’s a fallacy. Tea drinkers are sexy. Try sitting close, holding hands and kissing over coffee; it might seem romantic until you lean in for the kiss and get a whiff of your partner’s breath. Tea drinkers don’t have that problem. Sipping, touching, flirting, kissing – these things all come natural when you’re sharing tea with someone you love. Whether sitting in a café on a date, or tête-è-tête at home, – tea encourages an intimacy that no other beverage provides.

Tea doesn’t intoxicate you, instead, it stimulates and calms you leaving the intoxicating part to the charms of your lover. It never intrudes on a conversation, its subtleties allow you to think about the person next to you, what he or she might be feeling, or wanting. Sometimes, in a busy life, consuming your partner passionately, may start with the two of you consuming a cup of tea. That 10 or 20 minutes each day to slow down, talk, flirt and drink helps remind your partner – and you – about what truly matters. It’s a time to set aside the business of life and enjoy something pleasurable and hot. It gives you a chance to connect, or reconnect, on a daily basis with the lover you so often crave.

It’s okay to start with tea and end up naked.

In the end, tea is nothing on its own. Sometimes it is just a prop to create a ritual that gives you the moment and chance to seduce. Though as a prop, tea excels in allowing you to move closer, touch more intimately and kiss a little more. It isn’t really the tea that moves you to think about sex, it’s the handsome man or amazing woman beside you that does. It’s his or her charms that excite you – it’s their smell, their look, their feel. Tea warms and prepares you, but it’s not the tea that is sexual, it’s you.