I'm coming out... as a tea drinker
That's proper. I drink tea. Deal with it. It's simply an aspect of me, now not the entire of me. I'm nonetheless the same character. Don't hate.
I've been drinking coffee since I was in high school. Coffee's just always been there. By college I was drinking it black. No contaminants for me. Real people drink coffee. Or so I always thought. Besides, I loved the stuff. Ten years ago I bought a roaster and started roasting my own for crying out loud. I not only drank coffee, I understood coffee.
I saw tea people as weak and high maintenance. Coffee for me was as much a statement about who I am as it was my preferred way to get caffeine into my system. Tea people weren't in it for the caffeine I thought. And since you never really had to acquire a taste for tea, I assumed that tea drinkers were people who weren't strong enough to get over the hump and learn to like coffee.
Don't trust coffee's an acquired flavor? Set a cup of black espresso in front of a child sometime. Hilarity will turn up, I assure you.
Anyhow, all of that changed almost a year ago.
Last December I was a house guest in the lovely home of Sara Baldwin, the doyenne of American Mosaics . Sara drinks tea exclusively. It wasn't 'til we got back from dinner that she broke the news to me that there was no coffee in the house. I remained cool on the outside but I was panicking on the inside. Waking up without any coffee in the house had long been a recurring nightmare but I was a guest. I was determined to tough it out.
The subsequent morning I walked into the kitchen and Sara changed into making a pot of jasmine tea. I had a cup.
It was pleasant. Really pleasant. It had caffeine in it and for that I was grateful, but more than anything the jasmine tea was pleasant tasting. I'd grown so used to shocking my system into action every morning with the murky bitterness of black coffee that it never occurred to me that I could do the same thing a little more pleasantly.
I drove domestic to Florida from Virginia that day. It changed into a 15 hour pressure and the the whole manner home all I should consider changed into that jasmine tea.
 |
| Tea is made from the new leaves of the Camellia sinensis, a warm-climate evergreen shrub that's a kind of camellia, as its Latin name suggests. |
I bought some after I were given home and I began drinking jasmine tea. I've never been one to do some thing half of manner so inside a week I'd set up myself on the tea store down the street and I set approximately gaining knowledge of all about tea.
 |
| As befits a member of the camellia circle of relatives, tea blooms. |
Nearly 11 months later and there needs to be 30 forms of tea in my kitchen. In the mornings I like a Lapsang Souchong. In the afternoons I like a terrific Earl Grey or a chai with black pepper. At night I usually move for some thing citrus-y and without any caffeine in it. I'm hooked on the tastes, I'm hooked on the ritual and I love the whole package deal.
By mere happenstance I ran into someone on Twitter named Jim Shreiber. Jim's a tea merchant in Chicago and he Tweets as @JimmyDoesTea . Jim's a riot and he really knows his tea. Jim's business is named Shui Tea and his approach is two pronged. He sells tea through the store on his website and he also does in-home tea tastings in Chicago. I admire his approach to tea and since he blends his own, he knows what he's talking about.
Two weeks ago I ordered a few teas from him. I ordered a blend he calls Moscow After Hours, a mat? Combination called Caramelo R?Pido (mat? Is made from the leaves of an Argentinian holly tree and is a parallel obsession of mine) and a non-caffeine tea known as Cherry Bomb.
Moscow After Hours is my new afternoon tea. What a complex and delightful blend it is. He starts with a blend of Lapsang Souchong and high-mountain Ceylon. He then adds bergamot, milk thistle and safflower. The bergamot gives it the he familiar ring of Earl Grey, but the milk thistle and safflower leave it with an effect that can only be described as smoky. To quote from his website, "Smoky and strong, the assertive aroma will make those around you whisper, "What on Earth are you up to?"
I mix up my afternoons with Shui Tea's Caramelo Rápido. Maté is in a league all it's own and I don't care what anybody says it has caffeine levels that dwarf tea and coffee. Two cups of maté at around 3pm leaves me hanging from the rafters. Maté by itself is a treat enough but when it's roasted and blended with a hint of caramel it's almost heaven. If you've never had maté, track some down. You won't be disappointed. On second thought, order some Caramelo Rápido from Shui Tea!
Finally, my evenings are actually spent int he organisation of a blend called Cherry Bomb. Cherry Bomb starts offevolved out in lifestyles as Rooibos tea mixed with cherry, chili, rose, safflower, peony and carrot. Those disparate flavors integrate into something of such lovely complexity that caffeine's beside the factor. Imagine the taste of a lingering cherry popsicle, with only a little earthiness, the scents of peony and rose after which a chili pepper stop note that kicks you inside the enamel. I cannot get enough of the stuff.
Oh I nevertheless drink coffee from time to time and it's going to do if I'm out and have no of my tea components accessible but at this point, nothing does it for me the way a pleasing cup of tea does.
My orders from Shui Tea arrive days when I order them and everything I've purchased has passed my expectancies in every manner. If you are curious approximately the sector of tea, I advocate you are taking a brief experience through the Shui Tea shop. And if you're in Chicago, set up an in-home tasting with Jim, I'd like to know what they may be like.
Shui Tea's website and blog is here and you can go to the tea store directly here . Give it a try, there's a whole new way of looking at the world available through the miracle of tea.
