Tea, for Two, and Two, for Tea oh...
Oct. 6th, 2010 12:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bare_bearI went out for tea with a friend this afternoon, and it got me thinking about one of my favourite hot drink. And cold, for that matter, ever since a friend of mine from South Carolina introduced me to sweet tea. Mmmm...so good.
I can't imagine a time when I didn't drink at least a cup of tea a day, but such a time did exist. I didn't even really try it until my mid-teens. Oh, I'm sure I'd had it many times when I was younger, it was always around at family gatherings and other social events, but my immediate family aren't tea drinkers, so it was never around in the house.
The first time that I remember trying tea was when I was around 15 or 16 years old. I remember my Dad was working out of town, doing industrial electrical work in northern mines. One of his times out, he came home with a zip-lock bag filled with different types of herbal tea, given to him by a friend. I remember he was excited about trying it out, since "tea is supposed to be healthy or help with digestion or something". (Dad was always excited to try out new things.) His excitement quickly waned, though, and the bag filled with tea sat in the cupboard for months. Then one cold day, I decided to try some out, and that was it. Instant love.
I was always the kooky one in the family, so while everyone else drank soda or juice, I got obsessed with tea. I even started to make my own. I bought a potted mint plant at the farmers market and kept it on the deck, and would make up my own blends of tea by adding different types of local plants. I'd wander the fields and brush around my home with this little guidebook on plants of southern Manitoba I'd picked up somewhere, collecting plants and learning about their different medicinal uses. I even dried some plants for tea over the winter.
After I moved to the city, my tea obsession waned considerably. It was only when I started university a few years later that I rekindled this love, although sadly only with store-bought tea. Not many useful (and tasty) plants grow in the city.
I'd love to get back into making my own tea. My Grandma on my Mom's side is an herbalist, and she's got an amazing collection of dried plants and fruits that she goes out and collects each year for her herbal remedies. (She makes this one tea blend that is great for low level headaches, and smells just like - and makes me crave like mad - my other Grandma's turkey stuffing.) I very much believe in the effectiveness and power of herbal remedies, especially for ailments like headaches and stomach problems.
In the mean time, I'll stick with my store bought crappy bagged tea and the pretty loose-leaf teas found at some of the local tea stores around here, and learn more the history, rituals, and blends for tea. Who knew it's history was so colourful! I may need to pick up a book or two about the story of tea.
I can't imagine a time when I didn't drink at least a cup of tea a day, but such a time did exist. I didn't even really try it until my mid-teens. Oh, I'm sure I'd had it many times when I was younger, it was always around at family gatherings and other social events, but my immediate family aren't tea drinkers, so it was never around in the house.
The first time that I remember trying tea was when I was around 15 or 16 years old. I remember my Dad was working out of town, doing industrial electrical work in northern mines. One of his times out, he came home with a zip-lock bag filled with different types of herbal tea, given to him by a friend. I remember he was excited about trying it out, since "tea is supposed to be healthy or help with digestion or something". (Dad was always excited to try out new things.) His excitement quickly waned, though, and the bag filled with tea sat in the cupboard for months. Then one cold day, I decided to try some out, and that was it. Instant love.
I was always the kooky one in the family, so while everyone else drank soda or juice, I got obsessed with tea. I even started to make my own. I bought a potted mint plant at the farmers market and kept it on the deck, and would make up my own blends of tea by adding different types of local plants. I'd wander the fields and brush around my home with this little guidebook on plants of southern Manitoba I'd picked up somewhere, collecting plants and learning about their different medicinal uses. I even dried some plants for tea over the winter.
After I moved to the city, my tea obsession waned considerably. It was only when I started university a few years later that I rekindled this love, although sadly only with store-bought tea. Not many useful (and tasty) plants grow in the city.
I'd love to get back into making my own tea. My Grandma on my Mom's side is an herbalist, and she's got an amazing collection of dried plants and fruits that she goes out and collects each year for her herbal remedies. (She makes this one tea blend that is great for low level headaches, and smells just like - and makes me crave like mad - my other Grandma's turkey stuffing.) I very much believe in the effectiveness and power of herbal remedies, especially for ailments like headaches and stomach problems.
In the mean time, I'll stick with my store bought crappy bagged tea and the pretty loose-leaf teas found at some of the local tea stores around here, and learn more the history, rituals, and blends for tea. Who knew it's history was so colourful! I may need to pick up a book or two about the story of tea.
