Tea and seminar thingies:
I'm a hedonist. I love hot drinks. So, start talking tea to me (or coffee, or hot chocolate) and you have my rapt attention. Even at a tea seminar where I was the youngest person there by decades, with only one other woman even close to my age. (To the point where one woman told me that it was so lovely to see young people taking interest in older people. I really didn't want to hurt her feelings and explain that I was really only there for the tea and to a certain extent for the cookies, since I hadn't been expecting the cookies.)
Some tea pointers that you probably already knew:
1) It appears that I will need to consider investing in another cast-iron tea pot for the occasional times when I wish to make green tea, and the times when I may wish to make the red (rooibos) teas, since the cast iron teapots will begin to retain the flavours of the tea you customarily put into the tea pot, which in my case is my favorite aloha black tea (it tastes faintly of coconut, and when you combine it with cream and sugar, you have heaven. Absolute heaven.) Hmm. Or I could, of course, invest in a normal tea pot, but, that would be dull, and normal tea pots don't intensify the flavours the same way that the cast iron tea pots do.
2) A possible alternative for locals to Teavana: Siblings, apparently located somewhere on Commercial Boulevard. Disclaimer: a) I've never been there, b) I don't, in fact, actually know where this place is (east Commerical Boulevard, but, you know, that's not precisely specific). They do, however, provide a wide selection of teas, including the white, rooibos, green and various black teas.
3) Proof that the Internet offers everything:
http://www.theteacaddy.com/tearooms.aspx
This is a list of tea rooms throughout the United States, listed by state. They serve tea and cookies and various things associated with tea, like scones. Go have fun.
4) Wow, some people hate tea bags, and by hate, I mean, regard tea bags with the same disgust and hatred that most of us reserve for cockroaches. And by some people, I don't mean the people delivering the tea seminar, who provided a nice, calm discussion of why loose leaf tea provides more flavour and health benefits than tea in tea bags, but one of the women at my table, who was apparently convinced that the tea bag was the chief sign of and cause of disintegration in Western society, and entertained us with stories about her Civil War grandmother (I told you, I was the youngest person there, by decades) who had passed on the tradition of keeping up the spirits of those Yankee troops by serving them proper tea when they came home.
"Yankee?" we said, somewhat surprised, since this is the sort of rant you expect more from the Confederate side.
"Yankees actually had true manners," she told us loftily. "And they knew how to serve tea."
Which was a nice change from the usual depiction of Yankees as those really bad-mannered guys who just happened to free people from slavery. But I digress.
Anyway, said Yankee Civil War grandmother apparently had four tea sets, the family tea set, the tea for general guests, the special tea set, and another tea set, which was the least any family could have in those days (I kept my thoughts to myself.) She taught her granddaughter to serve tea properly: it is, she told us, the least one could do for a guest. Since my least usually revolves around serving cream soda, and, when pressed, "chicken" (actually pizza because I forgot to buy the chicken but this is not that story), I felt just a little inadequate.
"Tea for me is basically a self-indulgence sort of thing," I admitted.
Wrong thing to say. After this, she launched on a discussion of just Where the World Had Gone Wrong, not just because of self-indulging people like me who hoard our tea to ourselves (guilty, I admit) but, because of tea bags, which just went to show how lazy current society is. "Like that Internet," she added. "People won't even put stamps on things anymore."
We all agreed this was deplorable, and had some cookies. She admitted, after being pressed on the subject, that she's been known to download a few songs from the Net.
5) Most tea lovers reading this already know this, but, teas can basically be broken down into just a few categories: black, green, red (rooibos, technically not really tea, but, it looks like tea), white, and herbal (this technically isn't tea either, but we'll stretch the definition here.)
I adore most black teas, and drink herbal teas regularly at work (I have to talk on the phone a lot, and herbal teas are really the only way to survive that. You need regular infusions of hot, caffeine free liquids, and that's herbal teas. I have probably downed enough raspberry tea to sink several boats by this point. ) But beyond that, I haven't been particularly adventurous in my teas. I've really been underwhelmed by most of the white teas and the red (roobios) teas I've tried: I think the problem with the white tea is that Teavana and others tell you, in rapt voices, that this is the ultimate, ultimate nirvana of teas, and, for me, well, it's a bit of a letdown. The pure rooibos teas taste rather, well, earthy, and not all that good.
But I forgot: you can flavour those too, and I can, without hesitation, highly recommend the peach rooibos, which is a delightful concoction, and a coconut white tea, which provides a similar effect to a nice mild orgasm. Marvelous.
I wonder, though: does my preference for flavoured, not plain, teas, say something about me?
Of course it does. But that's something we'll explore on another day.
Some tea pointers that you probably already knew:
1) It appears that I will need to consider investing in another cast-iron tea pot for the occasional times when I wish to make green tea, and the times when I may wish to make the red (rooibos) teas, since the cast iron teapots will begin to retain the flavours of the tea you customarily put into the tea pot, which in my case is my favorite aloha black tea (it tastes faintly of coconut, and when you combine it with cream and sugar, you have heaven. Absolute heaven.) Hmm. Or I could, of course, invest in a normal tea pot, but, that would be dull, and normal tea pots don't intensify the flavours the same way that the cast iron tea pots do.
2) A possible alternative for locals to Teavana: Siblings, apparently located somewhere on Commercial Boulevard. Disclaimer: a) I've never been there, b) I don't, in fact, actually know where this place is (east Commerical Boulevard, but, you know, that's not precisely specific). They do, however, provide a wide selection of teas, including the white, rooibos, green and various black teas.
3) Proof that the Internet offers everything:
http://www.theteacaddy.com/tearooms.aspx
This is a list of tea rooms throughout the United States, listed by state. They serve tea and cookies and various things associated with tea, like scones. Go have fun.
4) Wow, some people hate tea bags, and by hate, I mean, regard tea bags with the same disgust and hatred that most of us reserve for cockroaches. And by some people, I don't mean the people delivering the tea seminar, who provided a nice, calm discussion of why loose leaf tea provides more flavour and health benefits than tea in tea bags, but one of the women at my table, who was apparently convinced that the tea bag was the chief sign of and cause of disintegration in Western society, and entertained us with stories about her Civil War grandmother (I told you, I was the youngest person there, by decades) who had passed on the tradition of keeping up the spirits of those Yankee troops by serving them proper tea when they came home.
"Yankee?" we said, somewhat surprised, since this is the sort of rant you expect more from the Confederate side.
"Yankees actually had true manners," she told us loftily. "And they knew how to serve tea."
Which was a nice change from the usual depiction of Yankees as those really bad-mannered guys who just happened to free people from slavery. But I digress.
Anyway, said Yankee Civil War grandmother apparently had four tea sets, the family tea set, the tea for general guests, the special tea set, and another tea set, which was the least any family could have in those days (I kept my thoughts to myself.) She taught her granddaughter to serve tea properly: it is, she told us, the least one could do for a guest. Since my least usually revolves around serving cream soda, and, when pressed, "chicken" (actually pizza because I forgot to buy the chicken but this is not that story), I felt just a little inadequate.
"Tea for me is basically a self-indulgence sort of thing," I admitted.
Wrong thing to say. After this, she launched on a discussion of just Where the World Had Gone Wrong, not just because of self-indulging people like me who hoard our tea to ourselves (guilty, I admit) but, because of tea bags, which just went to show how lazy current society is. "Like that Internet," she added. "People won't even put stamps on things anymore."
We all agreed this was deplorable, and had some cookies. She admitted, after being pressed on the subject, that she's been known to download a few songs from the Net.
5) Most tea lovers reading this already know this, but, teas can basically be broken down into just a few categories: black, green, red (rooibos, technically not really tea, but, it looks like tea), white, and herbal (this technically isn't tea either, but we'll stretch the definition here.)
I adore most black teas, and drink herbal teas regularly at work (I have to talk on the phone a lot, and herbal teas are really the only way to survive that. You need regular infusions of hot, caffeine free liquids, and that's herbal teas. I have probably downed enough raspberry tea to sink several boats by this point. ) But beyond that, I haven't been particularly adventurous in my teas. I've really been underwhelmed by most of the white teas and the red (roobios) teas I've tried: I think the problem with the white tea is that Teavana and others tell you, in rapt voices, that this is the ultimate, ultimate nirvana of teas, and, for me, well, it's a bit of a letdown. The pure rooibos teas taste rather, well, earthy, and not all that good.
But I forgot: you can flavour those too, and I can, without hesitation, highly recommend the peach rooibos, which is a delightful concoction, and a coconut white tea, which provides a similar effect to a nice mild orgasm. Marvelous.
I wonder, though: does my preference for flavoured, not plain, teas, say something about me?
Of course it does. But that's something we'll explore on another day.