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All the tea in China
May. 7th, 2003 08:29 pmEdit -- fiddled t-stamp and unlocked entry, because is cool discussion :)
Today I drink Darjeeling. I've mostly been drinking loose jasmine green this past month, from a tin my mum gave me to take to work (it says Biluochun but isn't, confusingly). Jasmine green's my favorite, but I need the spice of variety if I'm to keep away from calorie-packed specialty soft drinks. New taste sensations, food my drug of choice. I'm a sensorial stimulus junkie without fanfare, because it doesn't take much to overload me. ^^;
So I bought a sampler of assorted (high-quality) tea bags, Earl Grey and English Breakfast and Orange Pekoe and so forth. In the process I discovered these Brit-flavoured black teas are a comfort drink for me, despite the fact that I've never had them at home. Home was always good sturdy Chinese green, accompanied by a steep descent into Lipton's and Nestlé ice tea powder, though recently we've branched out into Japanese green and a rather watery chai. I think it's because the only times I drank real tea during my childhood / early adolescence were during visits to the Birdcage-family (before they lived in the Birdcage), where it would be Earl Grey in nice china with honest-to-goodness cucumber sandwiches on crustless white bread. They've stopped doing that entirely. I wonder why?... I still brew it the normal Chinese way, though - in a mug I keep topped up with hot water until I've wrung a litre's worth out of the leaves, under the belief that the second/third infusions are better than the first - even though it's powdered black tea in a bag and not loose-leaf green tea. ^^; Still it turns out all right, and the expensive kind of tea bag doesn't make the water taste like boiled paper if you leave it in too long.
You're supposed to put milk and sugar in some of these, but I can't bring myself to do it. I drink chai and boba tea now, so it feels more acceptable, but for the longest time adding milk to tea seemed about as appetizing as adding it to Coca-Cola. And definitely not the Darjeeling, which for a black tea tastes terribly delicate. I don't see that it's like muscat grape, even when I do the wine-tasting thing of swallowing a bit and breathing out through my nose, but it's not a sledgehammer, that's for certain. ...I can't help it, I have to be a geek at everything I do. Everything. ^^;;
Today I drink Darjeeling. I've mostly been drinking loose jasmine green this past month, from a tin my mum gave me to take to work (it says Biluochun but isn't, confusingly). Jasmine green's my favorite, but I need the spice of variety if I'm to keep away from calorie-packed specialty soft drinks. New taste sensations, food my drug of choice. I'm a sensorial stimulus junkie without fanfare, because it doesn't take much to overload me. ^^;
So I bought a sampler of assorted (high-quality) tea bags, Earl Grey and English Breakfast and Orange Pekoe and so forth. In the process I discovered these Brit-flavoured black teas are a comfort drink for me, despite the fact that I've never had them at home. Home was always good sturdy Chinese green, accompanied by a steep descent into Lipton's and Nestlé ice tea powder, though recently we've branched out into Japanese green and a rather watery chai. I think it's because the only times I drank real tea during my childhood / early adolescence were during visits to the Birdcage-family (before they lived in the Birdcage), where it would be Earl Grey in nice china with honest-to-goodness cucumber sandwiches on crustless white bread. They've stopped doing that entirely. I wonder why?... I still brew it the normal Chinese way, though - in a mug I keep topped up with hot water until I've wrung a litre's worth out of the leaves, under the belief that the second/third infusions are better than the first - even though it's powdered black tea in a bag and not loose-leaf green tea. ^^; Still it turns out all right, and the expensive kind of tea bag doesn't make the water taste like boiled paper if you leave it in too long.
You're supposed to put milk and sugar in some of these, but I can't bring myself to do it. I drink chai and boba tea now, so it feels more acceptable, but for the longest time adding milk to tea seemed about as appetizing as adding it to Coca-Cola. And definitely not the Darjeeling, which for a black tea tastes terribly delicate. I don't see that it's like muscat grape, even when I do the wine-tasting thing of swallowing a bit and breathing out through my nose, but it's not a sledgehammer, that's for certain. ...I can't help it, I have to be a geek at everything I do. Everything. ^^;;
