Tea, It’s Not Just an English Thing

By: Sam MacDonald

I like tea--it’s warm and yummy and has just enough caffeine. Coffee’s not bad, but everytime I drink coffee, I get super jittery. Just one cup will leave my hands shaking. This doesn’t happen when I drink one cup of tea. Or two cups. Or three. Or four. Or five, six, seven cups.

In the span of two hours, I drank seven cups of tea.

One day abroad, the rest of the team went to Guernsey. Because of extenuating circumstances and my own stupidity, I was unable to go. And, as much as I wanted, and still want to go, I’m actually glad that I couldn’t go that day.

Instead, I slept in and went into town to find a cafe. It was a little nerve racking being on my own. I have never been alone in another country before, and I also didn’t have an internet or a cellphone plan.

When I decided to go out, I knew that I had to plan generally where I was going and exactly how I was going to get there.

I found the bus I would take, then screenshotted the rest of the way walking directions and set out.

I ended up at a cute little cafe, Real Eating Company Cafe. I ate brunch I guess, it was a late breakfast; eggs benedict, fresh-squeezed orange juice and a pot of green tea. The food was incredibly delicious, so good I went back the next day.

After I finished eating, I decided to do some work. I pulled out my laptop and external hard drive and began editing pictures from the day before. As I edited, I drank my pot of tea. The pot contained about three cups.

It took me about an hour to do all of that: eat, edit and drink tea.

After that first hour, I wasn’t ready to go. My computer still had battery and I still had photos to edit. However, I didn’t have anything to drink anymore, so, I ordered another pot of green tea. This pot had about three and half cups of tea.

I never imagined that I would be able to drink that much tea, or that I would even want to.

Everyday that I was there, I had at least one cup of tea, though I probably averaged about two cups a day.

I found that I prefer green tea, but I did try black tea. I tried it both plain and as Builder’s Tea, which is black tea with milk and sugar. Black tea is stronger and has a bite to it, like it’s almost bitter but not quite. It also left an aftertaste in my mouth if I didn’t have something to eat with it. Green tea is more even, it isn’t bitter and doesn’t have a bite. I can drink it alone or with food, I think that it’s just more versatile.

Right when I got home from this trip, I had to go grocery shopping. One of the things I picked up was a box of green tea, and I have become obsessed with it. It’s become an integral part of my day-to-day life.

I don’t have a tea pot but I do have a large mason jar, so almost everyday I brew myself a mason jar of green tea, which comes out to be about three cups.

To brew tea in a mason jar you need a few things: water, the tea and a Keurig or something similar.

I fill up my mason jar until the water is about an inch below the top of the jar. Then, I pour the water into the single cup section of the Keurig that I have. The Keurig doesn’t hold all of the water so there’s usually a little left in the bottom of the jar, which is nice because it helps cool the rest of the tea down.

Once, I turn start brewing the water, I put a bag of tea in the jar and also add two and a half teaspoons of sugar. After the hot water comes out of the Keurig, I stir in the sugar and let the tea steep for about seven minutes and then, voila, I enjoy my tea.

Thank you England and that day in the cafe for introducing me to my love of tea.