Mmm, tea ☕

I think I got my love of tea from my grandmother. She made regular pots of it, and emptied the old tea leaves down the toilet, which didn't seem wrong to me as a child. It probably stopped the sink getting clogged. Milk in those days was either full fat (silver top bottle) with cream that rose to the top, or even fattier (gold top) where you almost had to spoon the cream off to get to the milk beneath. As an occasional treat, she would give me the cream off the top of the milk in my tea. Looking back now, I'm revolted. And back then I also had two spoons of sugar in my tea.

When I was about ten years old, I tried only one spoon of sugar. Nicer. Then no sugar. Even better. When I got a place of my own, I got a tea pot and stopped buying tea bags. If ever I see a shop that sells tea, I have to try something new. I'm no kind of expert, but I like to be surprised. But I have to share the tea with my SO who has a less adventurous taste. Usually we have a mix of the Taj Mahal blend and Earl Grey. I put the used tea leaves in the compost bin, not down the toilet.

I've always liked black tea (what you get if you just ask for "tea") and, although green tea is interesting, it's never grabbed me. Having read what Alex Schroeder says about it, maybe I've been making it wrong.

Alex Schroeder on green tea

I have coffee occasionally, but I have no idea what makes a good coffee - it's all kind of the same. It saddens me when cafes have a selection of coffees but only one non-specific tea, and it's a tea bag in a cup. That's tea, but it's not good tea.

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