Tea Time?

Here is a mantra by which I would love dearly to live my life:  coffee in the morning, water in the afternoon, and beer in the evening.  It says it all.  Nothing, and I mean nothing starts the day better than that first sip of Java in the morning, before breakfast, before I’m even fully dressed and ready to start my day.  As a rule, I cut coffee off at noon, promptly.  I can’t get to sleep on time if I drink coffee in the afternoon.  I would love to be able to enjoy that glorious roasted goodness twenty-four/seven, but I don’t for two reasons.  The caffeine overload would have done me in years ago.  I actually cut Tim Horton’s out of my life for almost four years due to being seriously addicted to their brand, and was starting to feel my heart rate rise.  It could have been something to do with my job at the time.  It was more likely the coffee.

The other reason is because I associate coffee with my mornings.  I look forward to swinging my heavy heels over the side of the bed almost exclusively because coffee awaits me in my Kuereg without fail every day.  Of course, I like my job; this time of year is especially enjoyable because I have a beautiful, country drive in to my school, and you can’t beat the fall colours.  But honestly, coffee is the motivator to crawl into the shower, clear the cobwebs, and head out to the kitchen.  I even allow myself a second and third cup as the morning progresses—one upon arrival at school before homeroom, and one later in the morning.  After that, I’m fine with water in my bottle.

I have always enjoyed the flavor of fresh, cold water.  Some folks find the flavourlessness of regular water unpalatable.  There is a huge market for those putrid Mio flavor squeeze thingies.  You know the ones, with the silly commercial set to ‘Eye of the Tiger’, the kind that stain your clothes or the floor if you accidentally spill them.  Others enjoy those crystalized powder flavour enhancers.  Others still just buy juice, pop, or those dreadful energy drinks.  There is technically water in all of those, but there is so much more, most of which is not beneficial to our health, but as with most food and drink, taste wins the day.  For me, you can’t beat a tall glass of water for refreshment.  As much as I love coffee, I don’t drink it to quench my thirst.  It’s all about flavor and routine.  I understand completely why coffee and cigarettes go so well together.  They are both consumed for the same reasons.

You can imagine why I can’t drink beer every day.  As much as I love the subtle nuances and characteristics of a good ale, I don’t enjoy binge drinking.  Most of us go through our ‘drinking years’, and I was no exception, but there comes a time for us sooner or later to realize that regardless of all the obvious health risks, drinking is really best appreciated properly, and that means in small amounts to be savoured carefully.  I’ve been labeled a ‘beer snob’ in the past, and it’s probably true.  I scrutinize my selection at the liquor store the same way I would an album, a book, or a movie.  It is rare I would drink for the sake of drinking.  Enjoying a quality beer is an activity that requires care, dilligence, and reflection.  It’s a treat.  It is also a privilege.  If I chose to abuse it, I could lose it, either legally, or I would medically have to stop.  I choose to respect the boundaries so I can enjoy it this way for the rest of my life.

Since I refuse to buy bottled water, due to the environmental issues concerning the plastic it uses, and I’m usually at my coffee quota, and you can’t legally walk around with an open beer in public (which is definitely for the better), one day recently I wondered as I wandered at my local shopping center what, oh what, a fellow like me can drink while hitting my usual haunts.  As it turns out, there is a new tea shop open at our mall, so I decided to stop in for a moment to sample their wares and examine their merchandise.

The young man who greeted me in company apron and company smile was very efficient.  Usually, in up-start shops like this, or established, trendy, artsy cafes, you have young hipsters working behind the counter.  Knit capped, facially pierced, and almost passively content, they are your new best friend if you come in and take interest in their brand.  Maybe they are peddling fair-trade coffee.  Maybe Arcade Fire is playing over the speakers.  Maybe they’re wearing hemp bracelets and purple corduroy pants.  Always, they speak a little softer, their words enunciated a little more carefully.  Was that a pierced tongue I just saw? 

They’ll have exotic sounding drinks like ‘chai tea’, ‘frappucino’, or ‘mocha latte’.  A certain brand that I particularly enjoy doesn’t even call the drinks ‘small’, ‘medium’, or ‘large’, opting for the more pretentious ‘tall’ (for small, for some reason, as though it will impress me), ‘grande’ (pronounced with an “ay”), and the inexplicable ‘venti’ for the largest size.  The young men who work in these shops almost always wear facial hair, while the young ladies will have either dyed hair or dreadlocks.  My greeter approached me confidently, but without encroaching.  Good salespeople know by intuition when a customer is fishing.

He offered me not one, but several samples of their quality tea products.  They had several flavours steeping in cast-iron teapots over tea-lights.  It occurred to me then that ‘tea-lights’ obviously derived their name accordingly.  And all this time I thought you had to steep tea on a stove burner, or on an old-fashioned wood stove.

The teas were all great.  I drink tea very rarely, to tell the truth.  It wouldn’t be prudent for me to judge whether or not the tea really was worth buying or not, because I couldn’t claim the expertise and experience to really say one way or another.  All I could venture was that they were each pleasant to taste.  One was a little bitter, but as a fan of bitter ales, that didn’t bother me at all.  The rest were more fruity, which, if you don’t like traditional coffee or tea, might make it more palatable.  One, my new friend explained to me, was made from dragon fruit and pomegranate, I think.  Being a Maritimer, and raised on Pete’s Frootique segments on Live at Five, I would have figured I’d heard of a dragon fruit before, but no, it’s a new one on me.  I am more familiar with pomegranates, but not so much for the actual fruit itself, rather for the juice you can get in punches and cocktails.  Have you ever cut open a pomegranate?  I actually had to go online the first time I tried one to figure out exactly how to eat it.  They are also really messy.  Stick to the punch.

I decided to order the dragon fruit concoction.  It took about five minutes for them to properly steep it, but like good food, a good beverage worth its while is worth the wait.  I browsed the merchandise while I waited.  Shops like these always have lots of trinkets designed to catch your eye, claim your money, and sit in your china cabinet collecting dust.  You know the things I mean.  When was the last time you used that fondue set? 

Thinking about potential gifts for the holidays, I spotted a very well-crafted teapot.  It came either by itself, or with a set of tiny tea cups, which had no handles, designed like those tiny Japanese glasses that hold about three ounces; not one but two small wrought-iron, leaf-shaped saucers per cup; a ceramic serving tray, a base in which to set your tea-light; and utensils, probably carved out of bamboo.  What a beauty!  This would make a fantastic centerpiece for Mom, I thought, before I lifted the pot to check the price.  Suffice to say, as I was setting it back down, half a dozen other things I could spend a hundred dollars on came to mind.  My friend and guide, knowing that I was certainly not buying merchandise today, informed me that this beautiful conversation piece would cost me no less than six hundred dollars.  Do you really need two saucers per cup, though?

As I shuffled out into the mall, almost four dollars poorer, but richer in spirit for my soul-warming new favourite beverage, I couldn’t help but imagine how fancy my dining room table would be with that swanky new tea set.  And before my tea was cool enough to actually drink, I realized that this shop wasn’t for me.  It is for the tea snobs.  The people like I am for beer, except for tea.  I reminded myself of the only time I actually drink tea.  It is when I am visiting my parents, after we’ve had dessert, when we’re sitting in the cozy sun room, with a warm wood stove heating our outsides while good ole’ Red Rose warms us from within.  One cup, just a little milk, that’s it.  While it didn’t make my daily fluid schedule, tea has a distinct place in my lifetime of routines.  Trying to become acquainted with the wonderful world of trendy teas would, for me, be like lifting weights, learning to play guitar, drawing, and scrapbooking.  All things I would like to like, but just can’t.  Maybe it’s time to give away that fondue set.