Tea and Me

[memories evoked by the Weekend Wordsmith prompt "tea"]

I didn't drink tea. The first tea I knew of was iced tea, drunk by nearly everyone I knew in the summer. I didn't like it. With or without sugar didn't matter, with or without lemon. It just wasn't my thing. When I was in Girl Scouts, we learned to make Sun Tea by putting tea bags in a large glass container that would sit in the hot summer sun for a long time. Since this was just another way to make iced tea, I wasn't really impressed.

Then I clued in to my dad making tea at home. He would put a kettle on the stove to boil, then he would select tea from tins and fill a teaspoon-infuser with his selection (or a mix of them). The gizmo fascinated me. It was like a spoon with holes in it, with a hinge on one side and a holey top that latched over the tea leaves. Then he poured boiling water into the empty teapot and let it sit for a minute to warm it up. Then he would empty it out and put in the tea, followed by more water to start steeping. Most of the time, I didn't like that tea much better.

I don't know who introduced me to flavored teas and then herb teas. Perhaps it was on that week-long vacation, when I just didn't feel up to skiing one day and I spent the day with my non-skiing mom instead. We had a late breakfast and I don't know if I looked poorly or what, but the waitress asked if I wanted Chamomile tea. I don't remember if I tried it then or later, but it was definitely not like the tea my dad had.

When I was about 12 years old, my family took a cruise in the Caribbean on a Greek ship with a lot of Americans. My brother and I were the only kids on the whole boat. We had a lot of adventures but I remember afternoon tea. Every day at 4pm they served tea in the lounge. Not only tea, but also cookies. I learned that I liked lemon and sugar in my black tea. My brother liked milk and LOTS of sugar. We both liked the cookies.

And thus began my love of tea. I don't like all teas - I am somewhat picky. And I don't need the caffeine, so I tend to pick the de-caf varieties (except for those rare mornings when my brain just doesn't seem to start at work and I make a cup of English Breakfast Tea). I somehow never learned to like Earl Grey, and green tea is wasted on me.

There are some teas that I love to smell, even though the taste is pretty pale. I found an almond-based one once. Another in this category is a jasmine tea - delightful to smell, but it really tasted like I was trying to drink a sweet flower!

But now one of my biggest delights on vacation is to wake up slowly, then make a cup of herb tea and sit on the porch watching the day begin. There are evenings when a cup of Sleepy Time tea (mostly chamomile and mint from Celestial Seasonings) is just what I want.

And in the last couple of years I have discovered chai. I have never made my own from scratch (I will some year) but I am particularly fond of Stash Decaf Chai Spice. It has lots of spices, but no black pepper (I don't like the dry end-bite that the pepper tends to give). With milk and sugar - yum!

Who would have thought that the girl who didn't like (and STILL doesn't like) ice tea, would grow to like so many tea beverages?