Mmm! I love my tea thick.

I'm the only one in my family that drinks hot tea in my family. They drink tea, just not hot. Actually, I would say that my house goes through at least three gallons of tea a day. The concept of water has yet to be introduced.

Now, I like my tea, but I like it in tea bags. I've never tried loose leaf tea and don't plan to until I take time to go buy a tea pot,strainer, and a nice set of china! Then I'll invite of Mary Sue and Diane for some nice biscuits and....right. I'm usually in a hurry and throw a bag in a mug and then pour some water over it right as I walk out the door. Sure, my tea would probably taste a million times better if I took out time to properly fix it complete with strainer and pot, but I do not. I'm sure every loyal tea drinker out there cringes at my caloussness concerning there prefered beverage.

All of this is getting to a story that happened two years back. Look with me into the past...

My friend and I had been pointlessy surfing the web and chatting about many a pointless subject when I came upon a slightly shifty looking page about divination. Of course the curiosity of my fantasy based mind was instantly piqued. Anything involving divination brought up fond memories of a certain Prof. Trelawney. I find that the site is really just a list of symbols and their meanings with directions to make tea, drain it, and then look at the leaves.

I IMd my friend and we immediately complied with said directions! Oh wonder of wonders, we were going to start a business of tea leaf reading. (Possibly with nice china and biscuits...) Unfortunately, I had no loose leaf tea. Just some nice Lady Grey tea bags. Oh Well. I ripped one of them open, dumped it into a mug, and then sloshed some water over it. My friend on the other side of the internet did the same. We waited the required brewing time of 3-5 minutes and then proceeded to down our dreggy brews. Absolutly disgusting. In waiting our 4 minutes we failed to take into account the time it would take to drink it. So by the time we got half way through the cup the taste could safely be compared to a fragrant varnish. By about the 2/3 mark it was getting nice and thick with our incy wincy tea bag particles. Mmmm.

Finally, the cup was finished. I looked deep into the cup and realized all of my effort was for naught. First of all, tea bits do not lay the same as tea leaves. Second problem, most of the dregs had been swallowed due to their small nature.

What moral was learned from this? What lesson was learned? Well, it turnes out that loose leaf tea is probably superior due to the plain fact that it's actually made of leafs. Tea bags contain small bits of leafs that have probably fallen onto the tea factory floor and then been swept up. Disgusting.