Tea-totalling is in vogue
A Column by Karen Henslee
Long before I was a coffee-drinker, I was a coffee-sniffer.
One of my favorite aisles in the grocery store was the coffee aisle – especially the bins of fresh coffee beans, flavored and unflavored, Colombian and mountain grown. (I have even been caught a few times bending down to take deep breaths beneath the spigots.)
I always wondered why the coffee did not taste as good as it smelled. I acquired the taste rather late in life.
But I’ve been a tea-totaller for a long time.
Several years ago, when my three-year-old was in Sunday school, one of the teachers, a man, mentioned he drank tea. This seemed to puzzle her greatly, and she announced decidedly: “Mommies drink tea. Daddies drink coffee.”
I had never really given it much thought, but life experiences for toddlers are so simple, aren’t they?
Tea is now quite in style. And not just Lipton... there’s a vast array of herbal teas (that don’t taste like tea at all, they’re just packaged in those little flo-thru bags); green tea, white tea, organic and otherwise; caffeinated and decaffeinated.
And there are “proper” tea preparation procedures, including instructions like, “bring only the freshest of waters to a boil.”
(Seems kind of silly. What other kind of water would you want to drink?)
Watching shows or reading books like Anne of Green Gables, where serving tea was a grand event seemed a little odd to me. After all, you stick a tea bag in a cup of hot water. Why throw a party for that?
Recently, however, I received some loose-leaf tea with a nice teapot, and a friend gave me a beautiful tea cup and saucer. I was surprised how much I enjoyed preparing the tea, setting up a tray with all the tea elements on it, and serving myself. It was more than a simple, plain cup o’ tea. It was a moment or two to spend with friends, set aside from all the hurry.
Now I understand what a tea party was intended to be. And why the hard working women in the past made time for it.
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