Tea bag

I'm becoming a bit of a Tea-o-phile. It's been a slow process. It started a couple years back, when a coworker and I would take tea breaks. For a period of time the coffee sucked so I joined him in using lipton tea, cream, and sugar. It was a pretty lame Chai. Later on I began trying some lipton green tea. At my old work we would also get tea samplers of various sorts. I used to drink a lot of the sleepytime knock off that bigelow made.

During a state street sidewalk sale one day, I picked up some rishi chai. It's basically black tea with a bunch of spices in loose leaf form. I had a lot of trouble with it, because my little mesh infuser ball would always either be too full - meaning ingredients spilled into the liquid, or not full enough, meaning it was weak.

For a period of time I was obsessed with jasmine tea as well. I had some good stuff in Chinatown and had been searching for a while. But all the jasmine tea I found here in madison was too bitter.

Lately though I've found some good stuff. It's actually little balls of whole leaf green/jasmine tea. When soaked in hot water long enough, the balls uncurl and the whole leaf gets exposed. It was kind of pricey, $18 for something like 4oz. But 4oz is probably at least a hundred servings. I have had 15 at least and it has no sign of being empty.

The other breakthrough is in the tea pot. My new tea pots have infusers in the center. I pour the water down the infuser and then it filters through to the outer area.

Of course, I then needed something to heat the water, because at my new workplace we have no water cooler. I bought a $10 hot pot.

The last and final, perhaps most crucial, step is filtered water. The water at work gets cloudy or brown often. They say it is safe, but who knows if it's true. So I have a brita filter.

In the afternoon a coworker and I have chai tea. We bring in milk and boil milk and water, add some high quality black tea with spices, and a spoonfull of dried ginger. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it. Not only do I get a short break, but I get tasty tea as well.