Angry Post #1

Once you've admitted to someone that you used to work at a tearoom, automatically you morph into their tea guru, no longer a simple, innocent bystander. Now you are someone able to answer all their (what they consider to be) "crucial" tea issues.

This has been my life ever since my short time spent working at a local tearoom (I am electing to NOT advertise for them on my precious blog, it's a touchy issue). Everyone seems to believe that tearoom employees somehow are filled with all knowledge pertaining to tea, like all tearooms have some Matrix-style rig cramming our brains full until we become mentors for all you novices.

Well I'm here to tell you all something: I'm sick of it! Honestly I don't know that much about tea, but to many of my devout followers, I'm like Tammy Faye Baker. Come on people! Don't believe everything I say!

I apologize for I digress. My point: Until I start receiving respectable questions about tea I will be referring all to this post, listing the 5 facts about tea that I'm sick of repeating.

1. All tea (minus herbals) come from the same plant. Green tea doesn't come from the green tea plant while black tea comes from the black tea plant. They're all from the Camellia Sinensis plant and variations in tea are purely due to processing and/or variation in growing conditions.
   
2. If you insist on using teabags, reuse them! While black teabags can usually only be reused 1 or 2 times, green tea as well as herbal teas such as spearmint can easily brew up to 5 cups. Saves money too.
   
3. Decaf it yourself. No more excuses for not drinking more tea throughout the day. Even if you don't have decaf tea on hand, simply do it yourself. Steep the tea as usual but for no more than 30 seconds, discard the brew and then re-steep the same leaves and voilà! Decaf tea!
4. Use boiling water! Duh, right? However I've seen several people boil water and then just let it sit there for minutes on end, cooling off! Finally they'll get around to making their tea, not surprisingly producing a weak, low quality flavor. If you're making black tea, when the water comes to a boil, pour it over the tea immediately, none of this cooling crap. If you're making green tea, either pour the water over the tea just before it comes to a boil or use it after letting it cool for 10-20 seconds after it boils.
   
5. Yes, tea is healthful. Just get over it and admit it, tea is good for you. Obviously there's no doubt about it. Well maybe there's a minuscule, virtually invisible iota of doubt, but honestly, come on. Just taste the stuff. It's so unmistakably wholesome.