Tea!

Ahoy there, fellows and fellettes!

I have not exactly been blogging up a storm recently; I realize that. I mostly blame my computer. It's got a virus, and I know I should just call up somebody at Microsoft and politely ask them to kill the virus, kill it dead, but I know from experience that said task is going to eat up a couple hours of my life and I've been putting it off. My computer time is thus curtailed to my 15-minute breaks at work (and I often like to use five of those minutes to go next door to Walgreens, where the candy bars live) and the unpredictable amounts of time that I can use Neal's computer when he isn't using it (and he needs it to do, you know, actual work). Overall, this has been good for me. I was spending way too much time reading the internet (there's always more to read!). Alas, the blog has suffered. So now, whilst Neal is reading a book, I will tell you about how much I love tea.

I realized I had been remiss in announcing my new love to the world when I talked to my mom this week and it was the first she'd heard of it. When your own mom doesn't know something integral about your life, you know you've messed up.

Perhaps "integral" sounds like I'm overstating things, but let me explain: I am not a coffee-drinker. If I wanted something warm to drink in the morning (or anytime), I had no recourse but to drink some hot chocolate. Hot chocolate is fine, and all, but A) you can't drink more than a mug or maybe two without starting to feel a little gross and B) you feel a little ridiculous ordering it at coffee shops and C) even when you do order it at a coffee shop, you can't be sure it's going to taste good at all--it might be bitter or, worse, it might clearly be a three-cent packet of powder that they dump into hot water and charge you like they did something fancy. Oh, and D) it doesn't give you the energy boost that coffee-drinkers get, rather just a little bit of a sugar rush.

Now let me make clear: I still don't like cold tea. Iced tea still tastes to me, as it always has, like water with a little dirt in it. Sweetening it only makes it grosser. What I like is hot black tea, with copious amounts of milk and honey. (I've tried green tea a couple times with poor results. There are enough kinds of green tea that I haven't written it off, but I'm a little wary.)

I'm a big fan of Twinings brand tea. I have my internet BFF, ashpags, to thank for this, because she mentioned Lady Grey and I had to go out and try it. I wasn't a big fan the first two times I tried it, and then all of a sudden I was crazy about it. (It's weird--this exact pattern has repeated itself for most of the teas I've tried. The third time really is a charm?) (Weirder: apparently I could be making Lady Grey cookies?) (Oh man, just looking at the Twinings website makes me all giddy about all the different teas I want to try. Oolong?! What a great name!! I want it!!!)

I think it's a big part of the appeal that I enjoy making, not just drinking, the tea. That's why I bought an electric kettle from Target.com the other day. I had tried boiling the water with a regular kettle, but it's a pain and takes a surprisingly long time. The microwave, of course, only takes a couple of minutes, but it heats up the cup along with the water, which is not entirely pleasant. I got the kettle last night (as I complained on Facebook, I didn't realize UPS had delivered the kettle until I looked up its status online. I guess the UPS man didn't feel like ringing the doorbell when he left it, a good eight hours earlier) and I'm a big, big fan. The directions on teabags always say to put the boiling water over the tea instead of immersing the tea in boiling water (as happens with the microwave). I was unconvinced it made any difference until I used the electric kettle, but the tea actually does taste and look better this way. Weird! I guess it's like in science class, where it's super-important whether you pour the acid into the water or the water into the acid (I no longer remember which is desirable--oops).

So (going back to the "integral" thing) now I drink tea a lot--I make some in a travel mug to take it to work in the mornings, I drink a couple big mugfuls on a Sunday morning to watch football pregame shows (no longer applicable until September or so, but I did really enjoy it), and I make decaf in the evenings when I'm cold and want something to drink while I read. (Also, I'm now dependent enough on the caffeine that if I go a day or two without it, I get a headache. I should feel weirded out by this, but instead it just makes me feel like I've got solidarity with all the other grownups, since it seems like most of them feel that way about coffee). In conclusion, good times. Good tea times.