Tea is Love
I grew up having a cup of tea in the morning. As a child it was always with sugar and milk. Whenever I had a cold or a sore throat, my mother would indulge me with a soothing cup of honey tea. In college I switched over to coffee for the needed caffeine boost in the mornings. Even now the day doesn’t start until I have at least half a cup of coffee in me. Tea is still my one true love. Coffee is fun, it gets me going and I do love the taste, but tea is my heart’s companion. My taste isn’t very expensive, in fact, some of my favorite teas I can only find in the dollar store. I don’t know about perfect brewing, nor will I extol the virtues of loose leaf above bagged (I drink both,) but I do love tea.
There is a tea for every situation and mood. In the mornings I can enjoy a strong cup of red tea. For dinner, one of my flavored teas, caramel, blueberry, apple, orange, or lemon, will surely suit. If the flavor of the dinner is particularly thick, such as a sweet teriyaki, than a palette cleansing, loose-leaf herb tea is preferable. A bitter cup of green tea nicely offsets a plate of sweets, and for a mid-morning refreshment, oolong really hits the spot. In the evenings or with a salad, a fragrant cup of Jasmine is truly refreshing, while chamomile is perfect for just before bed. In winter I can warm up with a cup of spiced orange tea, or spiced chai, and in summer I cool down with a glass of iced barley tea.
The reason for this rather long post on tea is that I just had a new oolong tea at my study group last night. It’s Szechuan Oolong cha (shisen u-ron cha in Japanese.) It was so delicious, and reminded me vaguely of jasmine tea because of a hinted flowery taste. It was really nice, and the Karin-san was nice enough to give me some bags. I’m also excited because at my suggestion we decided to have an English Christmas tea party in December. I’ll have to figure out what teas we should have and what sweets to serve with it, cakes and scones to serve with it.
While I’m in Japan I really want to learn the tea ceremony. I also want to ask my sister back home to learn her Indian friend’s spice chai (I hear he makes a great chai) so she can teach it to me. I want to learn how to make different sweets too, so in Japan that would be wagashi (tea sweets), and I’ll have to learn what Indian sweets are. I think if I ever had a café, it would be really great to be able to serve international sets of tea and sweets. Are there any other countries well-known for their tea, besides England, Japan, and India?