How for the best, things, after all, turn out to be:

Having shortly after the first of the month accidentally smashed the lovely two-cup china bowl, so perfect for my morning tea, and having subsisted stoically since, for my matutinal jolt, on  coffee in smaller cups--at last, towards the spare and scrimping end of the month, the day before yesterday, I set about restoring my morning (and evening) tea. First, at the Good Will Store, I purchased an elegant, slender but surprisingly capacious china teapot, and two bone-china Starbucks coffee mugs.  Then, at Kokua Market, I bought a quarter pound of tea (half Assam, and half Darjeeling), half a gallon of milk, and a new tea-ball (double the size of the old one). With all of which I now prepare a morning (and an evening) tea about twice the quantity and twice the strength--and half again the flavor--of my previous tea:  And a great joy it is to me.  My tea now brings me as full awake as ever coffee did, and yet, past midnight, gently lets me sleep.