I have been a tea drinker my entire life, and could never develop a taste for coffee. Becoming a coffee drinker is a rite of passage in the same category as one’s first date, first overnight camping trip without the family, or that first (legal, hopefully) sip of spirits. Kids look forward to sharing a cup of coffee with the adults, and once they are indoctrinated into the fold, it becomes as natural an act as brushing one’s teeth.
Of course, after a while, the teeth also become needy of some extra dental care to remove those stubborn brown stains from drinking coffee. And yes, teeth do become affected by tea as well, but some inconveniences such as unexpected bathroom visits or a sour stomach are missing from the picture.
My first tea was from Red Rose, and back in the day they used to include a bonus in every box; a small animal figurine designed by Wade Ceramics. People collected them from when they first appeared in the late 1960s. We eventually moved to Tetley. The boxes come with tea bags neatly arranged in rows kept in line by thin white cardboard dividers. In hard times, the folks at Tetley left out the dividers and, as long as people didn’t jostle the boxes around, they stayed relatively straight like the ranks and files of British soldiers. Most people seem to associate tea with Britain and India. A proper tea break is essential in the culture across the pond.
Until a few years ago, I had tea at breakfast, lunch and dinner, but lately I’ve kept my indulgence to mornings because of the effects of caffeine on the aging body which can interfere with sleep. Recently I abandoned tea bags because research has shown that what we Americans are consuming from those neatly stacked boxes is actually dust from tea leaves, and in the process of collecting and packaging, we may be ingesting micro plastics along with our morning cup.
Feeling downhearted at this revelation, I moved to ordering tea online; several marvelous websites show you how the tea leaves are picked and packaged in their natural state for brewing at home. I have become familiar with tea balls, infusers, bags and baskets and proper boiling and steeping times.
Being an American, I also cheat a bit when making that perfect cup.
I have a Keurig which is possessed by a mechanical demon; if I don’t measure my water carefully, the mechanism makes a mysterious sound as if a fuse is firing off. Unplugging it doesn’t make it go away. Since it has posed no harm to me, I simply ignore the noises, do my best to dry out the dispenser portion of the device, and continue as usual. Using an adapter, I can prepare hot water and steep real tea in my mug without sending K-pods into the environment. It’s a win-win for me, and I’m getting real tea.
The tea comes in temperature controlled bags which I can pop open and fill up my tea ball–a spring loaded device requiring concentration to avoid injuring fingers–with fragrant leaves from a measuring spoon, which will yield a tasty cup of joy. This time around, I’m brewing a green tea from a sampler collection I received.
Earlier this week I noticed that my acuity was slightly off. Hoping it was simply a byproduct of working off schedule one day, I tried to get plenty of sleep and refocus. Still some of my usual spot-on behaviors were not up to par. Had old age started to dull my mind?
Turns out my new tea was decaf.
When you’ve had caffeine for most of your life, withdrawal can creep up on you without your even knowing it. That goes for coffee drinkers, too. I recently read a joke about a barista who read back a customer’s order of a decaf with no sugar and diet creamer as a “why bother.” One drinks these beverages for the kick. In fact, entertainment sources such as television and movies depend on how the performers react to that cup of coffee. Clint Eastwood, in his Dirty Harry Callahan persona, famously returned to his favorite diner while a holdup was in progress, telling the invading robbers that he needed to complain that his server put sugar in his coffee. Indeed she did: we as the audience watched her consciously pour about a mug’s worth of sugar into the coffee with the intent of alerting him to what was going down.
Turned out what went down wasn’t a good cup of coffee.
My biggest memory of coffee was during a Girl Scout cookie sale in the lobby of what was then our town’s most famous bank. The mayor had his own desk in the front. The entryway had a table with a coffeemaker and all that could possibly go with it, so being a teen with a sense of adventure, I broke out a Styrofoam cup and began creating what I hoped would be a decent cup of coffee.
I added about a two-thirds helping, then added powdered creamer and sugar. The taste was horrendous. I felt like I was drinking liquid floorboard. Adding more sugar didn’t help, and the hot coffee was melting it as fast as I could add it. I would not have been able to stop a burglary with this cup. I had to surrender and admit to my peers that creating coffee was not my thing. Oh, the horrors!
It looks like I am in need of caffeinated green tea to get my edge back. Or else I should break out the English Breakfast that’s next in line to try. I’m sure I’ll finish off the decaf, and I won’t run out of varieties to try since tea shops are making a comeback. My Keurig cranks out a decent cup of hot water, even if it is possessed, so I’m not worried.
And before anybody steps up to defend coffee drinkers or complain that a coffee maker should not be used for tea, remember I have a mug and a hard metal tea ball, and I know how to use them.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog 