tea!

Many thanks to Scott and Amanda Snyder for their gift of an Edna t-shirt! I'll be posting a photo in an upcoming Blathering.

But now to my current obsession: tea.

When I was in Boston, I discovered a wonderful little shop called Teavana where I sampled a number of different teas and chatted with the nice Tea Guy (see photo below).

Teavana Tea Guy in Boston.

I've never been a big fan of loose tea up to now because of the hassle of clean-up, but the Tea Guy convinced me to try this tea-maker. And y'know, he was right.

So now I'm super-excited about trying all kinds of loose tea I haven't had a chance to sample before because that type of tea wasn't available in bag form. I bought Mate Vane and Rooibos Caramel at Teavana; both taste great by themselves and also in combination.

This morning I checked out one of the tea shops in St. Lawrence Market (lower level) and bought samples of Souwee White Tea, Lapsang Souchong, Assam, Monk's Blend and Rose Petal loose tea....total came to under $4! I can already see that one major advantage of buying loose tea is that you can try a small amount to see if you like or not without having to commit to a whole box of teabags.

And y'know, I actually like Lapsang Souchong. Smoky, slightly burnt flavour, reminiscent of campfires and late nights under the stars.

Mmmm...nothing's quite as comforting as curling up on a couch beneath a blanket with a cup of tea and a good book. Tea is the whole shebang, not just some dried leaves steeping in hot water. For me, any particular type of tea inevitably evokes strong emotional associations, a visual image, a fragment from a book or a poem. Tea reminds me of the Suttons' kitchen, of Jeff when he used to play guitar, Dave Weingart (because he posts about tea so often), Urban Tapestry's visit to UK with Lissa and Phil, Talis Kimberley introducing me to the concept of a tea library, Rand fanning out samples from his impressive collection like cards, cardomom cinnamon from Beckett, sipping Parki's vanilla tea while curled up on his living room armchair, decaf chai from Jodi, licorice tea with Allison, talking tea with the Savitskys at GAfilk.

My life summarized in tea; an ongoing project.

February 2005 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments