Just out of curiosity...

Sir, I am British. Need I say more?

In that case I shall.

I remember thinking, "What was it those adults were drinking out of hot cups?" All I was allowed was milk. I was unable to voice my dissatisfaction with the state of affairs until I had acquired enough motor control to reach out and point at the teapot.

"Oh look, he wants some tea, how charming."

I was very frustrated at not being able to persuade my family to give me any tea until I had acquired the word "Tea." This was a step forward for me. However, much to my disappointment, what passed for so-called tea, was, in fact, more milk with a teaspoon full of tea. I was probably at least four before I was drinking a reasonably satisfying cup of tea. But, horrifying as this sounds, I would have to wait a few more years before I graduated to the dark, potent, masculine brew.

Mr. Firefly, ask not what other people do not understand. It is of no consequence. Perhaps they have only been given floor sweepings in a bag. My poor culturally deprived American wife thought that they sold tea in the supermarket. Ha! I said to her. Those little bags of decaying dust wrapped in cellophane don't even come close to tea. Why would she, or anyone, like such an insipid drink? But when she had sampled the real thing, there was no going back, her cultural deprivation came thankfully to an end. Now at the mere mention of tea, her eyes shine with a blissful light, she radiates benevolence and good will. And she hasn't even had any yet. That's just the mention of it.

Fascination you say Mr. Firefly. Are you suggesting tea is hypnotic? I hope you are not casting aspersions on the salubrious brew?

Now when I was a boy of about 10, my friend Terry and I tried smoking tea. He lived down the road from me in the same small village. Somehow or other we had managed to get a couple of pipes. We filled them up with tea, as access to tobacco wasn't readily available. We had some discussion as to whether we should blow or suck. I was for sucking, but Terry insisted on blowing. On the count of three, we tried our methods. In the next instant, my bedroom was filled with smoke, I was coughing and spluttering, and Terry's eyes were wide with fear as he saw the entire lighted contents of his pipe launch towards the ceiling. We gave up smoking tea. We were fire hazards.

I would say that I was always interested in teas moreso than coffee, not really sure why exactly. Coffee just seemed a normal part of life in my upbringing with the two cups my parents imbibed each morning before work, and I never took a taste to it. They always got a cheap brand with the cheap filters and drank it because of it's properties and not for any cultural reasoning. I must say that some of the higher quality coffees can be quite good, but it still didn't seem my ...cup of chai. heh.

I would wander aficionado shops and gander at all the different brands and I recall having no idea where to even begin my sampling and education in regards to tea. It seemed that all of them were scented with this herb and had that property that was good for this or that. Then you had the inexplicitly expensive teas and little knowledge from the counter-maid to justify. I come from a rather small area in the US, and even my trips to our capital didn't prove to be beneficial in my hedge-interest. The money was in coffee. The other option was the grocery store...which only sold Twinning's Earl Grey and English Breakfast.

I really began to get into tea seriously when there was an available venue, which was when I went to China. I learned a lot about different sorts of green teas when I was in the Western, Sichuan province and I learned about the more well known Wulongs and more popular teas when I lived in the southeast. It just seemed like a normal part of life to drink tea there, and it was one of the adaptations that I made very willingly. They drink tea in restaurants and even in bars sometimes. But, it's not like most coffee in the US, drank for effect rather than enjoyment. It's for culture, it's for tradition, it's for honor, it's for relaxing. It's also not always about spending money to enjoy a really good tea. It's about making friends, but not like at Starbucks.

It's becoming that way though. I suppose it can be that way in every country given the money making opportunity.

Now that I have returned to America, I am seen as an eccentric and I am placated by those that cannot understand their own palates or have their palates be more open-minded. They see my interest in Gongfu Cha as a 'chinese tea party' and say that my pu'er tastes like dirt and my wulong tastes strange...they want to add sugar or milk or something else. They think real Chinese tea is the Green tea scented with apples or cherries and is sold at books-a-million. This is my reality here, and this is why I post here religiously now; so happy to find others that know the differences between a good wulong and a poor one and have tasted the differences.

I am also here to learn. I know there are people here that have knowledge that far surpasses mine, and I find it excellent and I only hope that I can share what little I know in the conversation. Isn't this the only to truly learn? For instance, I know little about other types of teas around the world other than Chinese. I hope to be educated here.

Hope this suffices. heh.

Mydnight

-------------------- thus then i turn me from my countries light, to dwell in the solemn shades of an endless night.

I just started lurking around in this news group but just had to add my two cents worth here particularly since you asked "why tea when the world is interested in coffee?". Well, what got me interested in tea actually was coffee. I started drinking coffee back in college to help me stay awake when studying or when working nights. I never drank it because I actually enjoyed the flavor until later when a friend of mine introduced me to beans and a grinder. Recently I started experimenting with french press and vacuum brewing and promptly tossed my Mr Coffee Gourmet in the garbage. I'm also roasting my own beans now. As with coffee in the past I was never very fond of tea particularly green tea. I figured I could just grab a hand full of grass from my backyard and do just as well. I was amazed at what a difference fresh beans and proper preparation made to coffee so I decided to see if the same applied to tea. Maybe I would like tea if it was fresh, high quality and prepared properly. Of course, you know the answer to that question. I find it interesting that most people seem to like either tea or coffee. I love them both. This is advantageous since I can brew a pot of coffee that will knock the socks off of my coffee drinking friends and then turn around and brew a pot of tea to knock the socks off of my tea drinking friends. One or the other usually turns into the topic of conversation since most of my friends had never experienced tea or coffee outside of the supermarket variety. It's amazing what people will accept because they don't know any different. What's really fun is that I'm just barely beginning to scratch the surface of the coffee and tea world and there is still so much to learn and experiment with.

Matt

Rufus T. Firefly wrote:

Some people I know do seem to think it's eccentric, but I don't think that's the tea itself they're reacting to. What they seem to find eccentric is the attention to detail when brewing, the desire to learn more about tea, and the care I take in tasting and enjoying it. Our culture tends to devalue anything that isn't hurried, anything that smacks of patience and devotion, so I suspect that's why some folks just don't get why we are interested in tea.

My friend introduced me to green tea in a bag about this time last year. I was interested in the stuff, so I pulled out a book from the library. When I read about whole leaf teas and their astonishing variety, I set out to learn more. Fortunately there are dozens of vendors online (I too live in an area where no local retailers sell decent teas in any variety) who are always willing to help me learn a little more, for the right price. :)

Jennifer

My interest in tea came from an interest in Chinese and Japanese food, and from living in places where I could get fairly interesting teas (found Keemun on my own when I was living in NYC). Seem to be allergic to coffee (it makes me slightly nauseous), so I didn't go that route. Tea is also, as the Specialteas catalogue points out, cheaper than wine.

This newsgroup is actually what sparked my interest. Beyond that, I have always enjoyed fine coffee, beer, wine, and other spirits; so tea being another potentially addictive fluid, I was a natural for it. After trying some tea that didn't come in a box, I found that I really enjoyed the various subtle flavors tea had to offer, and I also appreciated the simplicity of it as compared to coffee or beer.

Steve

Rufus T. Firefly wrote:

It's not a very exciting story.

My parents are from "The South." I grew up with a pitcher of iced tea in the refrigerator no matter the season - granted, it was the "instant" variety, which I now can't stand.

In high school, I wanted a hot beverage with caffeine to help keep me awake. Coffee literally makes me sick to my stomach. I love the smell of the beans, but the flavor is not to my taste, and it's not worth the after effects.

So, tea it was. Simple things at first - whatever I could get in the Twinnigs cans in the grocery store, then Republic of Tea products as they came available. But in graduate school, I discovered real tea. A local tea shop existed with a wide selection of loose leaf teas.

That first visit was when I started my path down the long black road... well, actually, sometimes it's green, white, or oolong.

I went to see a practitioner of Chinese medicine who had an excellent reputation. His most important prescription was that I should give up coffee.

Was it the caffeine? No, the essential oils.

So, could I get my caffeine via tea? Sure, no problem, tea is fine for you.

I was skeptical, but figured it was hardly likely to hurt me, so I was willing to try his advice.

The next day, I switched to tea. I never experienced caffeine withdrawal, but a couple of nights later I spent about four sleepless hours feeling as if I had a bad case of flu. By dawn I was fine.

Soon I was looking around for what new tastes and smells tea could offer, on RFDT among other places. I honestly can't say whether there have been health benefits, but coffee, which I rarely drink now, seems so limited in comparison to tea.

/Lew

South Louisiana in the 70's was not a hotbed of tea drinkers !... When

Obsequious use of "shall". Say no more -- you're British.

--crymad

Actually, my first visit to Japan in my college years got me sucked into the cult of coffee. This was well before the current Starbucks phenomenon, a time when privately run coffee shops could be found a few steps from any locale. It was only afterward, when I returned to Japan as a resident and not a student/tourist that my appreciation of food and tea really started to develop. Now, like most Japanese themselves, I rarely bother with teas from outside Japan.

--crymad

Now in my 50's, I was in my teens when I came upon loose tea. In those days, the mid-1960s, in my American town, loose tea was a "gourmet" item, found at the "gourmet" shop. "Gourmet" shops featured such weird stuff as marzipan and chocolate-covered beetles. Some loose teas could also be found at the department store -- mine carried the Wagner brand.

Anyway, I took a liking to the only available oolong, the rather heavily oxidized "Formosa Oolong" -- I drank Twinings back in the day; I wonder if their FO is the same now?

I stayed with tea for all these many years with a brief departure into the world of good coffee -- had a piano student who owned a coffee roasting company

-- and that was on the West Coast. Now that I'm in New York, the coffee hasn't seemed as good, though the occasional good cup is always tempting. The heavy caffeine rush is often unpleasant though.

The world of teas available has expanded multifold since those early days and I am grateful for it. I'm always learning and enjoying. Onward and upward!

Joe Kubera

I have to express to you my excitement at the responses my simple posting received! I was expecting one somebody to write "because it tastes good" and that be about it, but instead I received an amazing array of interesting stories about how love of the most simply brilliant invention in the history of humanity (at least in my book - which has yet to be written)springs forth from the dullness of the well-branded consumer world showing us that there is beauty in the most basic of things. A leaf in some hot water is about as basic as it seemingly gets. Sincerely, thank you.

By the way, I also grew up drinking my grandfather's lemonade, which is what many people in the deep, hot south refer to as "tea". I can still taste it now. In the north there a less prominent tea culture to me, because almost no one drank what we called "tea". Surprise. When I moved to Japan I drank some other "tea" and it was also quite different. After some time, like everything else, it was part of everyday life. Then it somehow became something to look forward to during the day. Then it became something to learn about and shop for and find google groups about and etc., etc.

Thank you again.

Rufus T. Firefly Tokyo

Twinnings pulled their FO years ago. I'm not aware of any other commercial brand selling FO. However just recently some Formosa brands have appeared on the shelves. You'll have to find a 'private' stock. Luckily my local tea shoppe carries several types of FO. My favorite is the jade pouchong.

Jim

Jim,

If I am not mistaken, "Formosa Oolong" refers to that specific honey sweet style enjoyed by man and leaf hopper alike, and is rather heavily oxidized. Jade Pouchong would be another type of Taiwanese Oolong entirely. It's all a matter of obfuscating language, that confuses more than it clarifies.

Michael

Space snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com11/29/04

My local tea shoppe also carries fancy,choice,champagne,imperial,high mountain and standard with the classic peach blossom taste. If it's an oolong from Taiwan that's all I need to know. We just went through a thread where the 'muscat' taste might even be missing from a darjeeling depending on flush.

Jim

Funny you asked. I was thinking about just that a few days ago.

My mom was a coffee drinker and I never acquired the taste. Dad was the Lipton-in-restaurants tea drinker. Both drank green tea in the Chinese/Japanese/Korean restaurants that we frequented in Honolulu. I tried the Lipton thing plain and with various combinations of milk, sugar, and lemon. Bleah. A girl in my second grade class shared my birthday so I was invited to her house for a party. They served Lipton iced tea - bleah. The only tea I managed to enjoy while underage were the green teas served in the various Asian restaurants.

When I was 19, an older female friend said that regular tea was too harsh and recommended herbal teas, specifically catnip tea. That was fun. Later, I got into chamomile but a co-worker said she hated looking at my cup because she thought it looked like pee. A buddy's mom suggested Constant Comment and that convinced me that black teas are drinkable. Although I don't particularly favor it, CC prompted me to discover what's out there and I have found that I enjoy Darjeeling, Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Prince of Wales, and Russian Caravan among the black teas as well as various green teas.

Do others view my fascination with tea as eccentric? Considering that I write with fountain pens, my drinking tea is simply par for the course.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com (Rufus T. Firefly) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com:

Aside from a brief fiddling with Earl Grey from the supermarket years ago (probably Twinings), I've been a coffee drinker. Then one day I got curious about yerba mate. I'd seen it on a PBS show (the one where they ride trains all over; this one was in Argentina). Something else must have reminded me, but I don't remember what. I tried it and liked it, and searched Google Groups about it. Someone, as it turned out, was discussing it in rfdt. This caused me to subscribe and (mostly) lurk, and before you know it, I was all curious about tea.

Now some months down the road, I haven't had any yerba mate in a while, but tea is a happy part of my daily life, as well as a deep and intriguing journey I know I'll never "complete".

Dear Groucho ;-),

It's kind of embarassing--I started driking tea because I didn't care for coffee, and restaurants don't generally give seconds on hot cocoa (ironically, I won't touch the tea in most restaurants now).

That was on a Boy Scout trip about four years ago--that'll give you some idea of my age, still in my late teens. When I got home, I started thinking that there had to be more to this stuff than Lipton, and, having nothing better to do over the summer, I checked one of James Norwood Pratt's books from the local library. By this time I'd advanced only so far as to be drinking Twining's and Taylor's of Harrogate. After a time, I got my nerve up to try ordering from Upton, one of the retailers listed in the book.

I was thinking that I would like black tea, since that's what I'd been drinking. But on a whim, I went out for the oolong sampler as well, and a quarter-pound of their basic pu-erh. It was the best move I've ever made--I drink mostly pu-erh now, with some oolong and green.

I'm at a boarding school now, and have found a friend as crazy about tea as I--and also into pu-erh. I've lent him a copy of "All the Tea in China", and am helping him with tea and tea stuff--he just got his first Yixing!

Right now, I'm trying to stock up on green pu-erh--figuring that I can have a cellar full of really well-aged stuff by the time I'm middle-aged.

Oh well. What's the "T" stand for? Tobias? [No, Edgar, but you were close.] ;-)

Many happy infusions,

ZBL