Don't Need to be in Boston to Have a Tea Party

Lovely green tea photograph from here

My tea supply is running low. I’m not sure if I’ve blogged about my tea-drinking habits before or not, but I’m pretty much a beverage snob. I only drink good coffee, good tea, and don’t even get me started on how snooty I am with beer and wine and don’t-you-dare-call-it-champagne-if-it’s-really-just-sparkling-white. Anywho. I’m a snob. I’m much more forgiving with food, but when it comes to what I’m drinking, I grind my own coffee beans and use my French press, and all my tea is loose leaf, fair trade, and organic. Thus, when I’m running low on tea, it’s not exactly a cheap run to the local grocery empire to pick up another box of Lipton. Rather, it’s a lengthy process of weighing how much I’m willing to spend against how quickly it can get here and how much variety I want.

Furthermore, not only am I a snob, I’m also addicted to all of those beverages better served hot. I drink about 5-6 cups of tea, coffee, or cider a day, and most of the rounds are usually tea. By “cups,” I do not mean the measurement of 8 fluid ounces; I mean one mug that, when I’m using my own favorite green ceramic number, actually holds about three and half *cups* of liquid. It holds four if I fill it all the way up to the brim (which I often do, and then subsequently spill some of it en route to my mouth). As I write this, I just managed to polish off a mug of this morning’s tea of choice: English Breakfast.

I only have about another two weeks’ worth of English Breakfast at the rate I’ve been boiling through it, and I only have about one or two more mug-fulls of Pu’erh left, as well. My herbal supply is still fairly well stocked, but I could always use more chamomile and I do feel like drinking the Dream blend from my preferred tea and herbal source, Mountain Rose Herbs. I haven’t bought that one in a while. However, I still have plenty of their Women’s Balancing blend and another favorite, Fairytale. I definitely need more green tea, and it’ll probably be either Matcha or Oolong.

There’s something so calming about drinking tea and coffee for me, even if I’m drinking a caffeinated version. I’m morally opposed to decaffeinated (why bother?) coffee as unnaturally taking the caffeine out of a naturally caffeinated beverage seems wrong to me. However, I do understand how some people (like my father) have to drink decaf because of heart conditions, et cetera. I’m young. My heart can handle it. I have no problem drinking a naturally caffeine-free tea, like pretty much every herbal tea on the market, although some contain trace amounts of caffeine.

In other ramblings, my parents and youngest brother are coming up to visit in a few weekends! We have a formal banquet as well as a musical put on by my classmates, in honor of being 100 days away from graduation. Don’t tell anyone…but the actual count is 94 as of today…so it’ll be 80something when we have the actual banquet for it. Whatevs. I still get to see my family again, which is always welcome :) And on that note, I’m going to wrap it up for today and get back to work. I have yet ANOTHER paper to write and a presentation to give on nuclear nonproliferation. Joy!