Reflections on Tea

[Львица] and I were watching American Psycho on Saturday night and, weirdly enough, one little dialogue bit about Sri Lanka gave me sudden deja vu.

I was suddenly reminded of a place called the Tea Room, in my old hometown of Columbus, Indiana. It was in the basement of this old hotel downtown that was either 1910 - 1920s or 1930 -1940s style that my girl scout troupe went to for one reason or another one sunny afternoon. I'd never had tea before and I was worried that I wouldn't like it because I expected it to be really bitter like coffee. But I really wanted to like it because I liked the whole idea of drinking tea - I'd had a plastic tea set that I played with a million times when I was six and seven (which probably helped influence my obsession with Britain). So I was hoping beyond hope that I would enjoy real tea - not just the milky water I'd made before.

science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/tea

The tea was from Sri Lanka, I distinctly remember our host telling us this and showing us where on the map it's located (ever since, Sri Lanka has held a certain sort of charm with me). We were served raspberry tea in this elegant little tea pot along with little cookies (or do you call them biscuits? :D) and I think - I think - cucumber sandwiches.

The tea was the most fabulous thing I'd ever tasted on earth. I have tried to find a raspberry tea that tasted as good as what I had that day, but I've been unable to find anything that could compare. It wasn't too sweet or fruity or too bland or too... anything. It was absolutely perfect. I fell in love with tea that day - and the whole culture and art associated with tea drinking - and I've never looked back.

Another thing I learned that day was that I have an odd affinity for certain time periods - the Victorian Era, the 1910 through 1940s. There's just something about that style, the history, the clothes - EVERYTHING - that just draws me in. Even as a ten year old, I was wandering around that hotel, peering into one of the rooms they showed us, just wanting to live there, to become a part of it. Maybe this is why time travel interests me so much - because I have all these little qualities, all these little fascinations with other time periods built up in my mind, and seeing them brought to life in literature, in film, etc, utterly enchants me.

On a sadder note, while trying to find photos of the Tea Room, one website said that it is now closed :( Just like so many of the other things I loved about Columbus. Alas... Thankfully, there are many tea rooms around (especially one I long to go to in Glasgow, but didn't have the chance while I was there) and I can easily enjoy tea in my own kitchen (as I'm doing now). But it will never be as magical as that first taste, that first cup in the Tea Room.

Breakfast of Champions

I decided that, after the email we received from an angry tenant first thing this morning that I should indulge in the closets thing I can get to a British breakfast (as I am totally lacking eggs, sausage and beans in my eatables) - Crunchy Nut cereal and Tesco Earl Grey tea.

As this box proudly announces, Crunch Nut is a brand new Kellogg's cereal - in the States. I had it five years ago in London and have been trying to figure out how to get my hands on it ever since. IT IS DELICIOUS. I'm not a very big cereal fan; in fact I generally try to avoid cereal for breakfast at all costs because it's usually like eating sweetened Styrofoam. But this stuff... this stuff is the shit.

And this tea... I have tried all different kinds of Earl Grey, all different brands. And this is my favorite. It's got the typical bergamot flavor but also a nice smoky overtone. No idea why, but it's delightful. It also reminds me of St. Andrews, Scotland, because I bought it at a Tesco there. It's going to totally suck once the box I have runs out... so for now, I must make the best of it and save it for special occasions. Or mornings with unhappy tenants.

More crap about tea

According to one of my roommates (and this she heard from a friend in her Russian class), there is such a thing as vegetarian green tea. Apparently it tastes like bubble gum with dirt in it.

First off, I thought tea was vegetarian to begin with - it's made from plants, unless some meat extract is randomly added that I've been missing out on for the last few years. And secondly, bubble gum with dirt? Really?

Life is so weird...

Earl Grey Tea

Okay, so this isn't actually about my love for Earl Grey Tea, but it could be as I have a deep, deep love of this English-y beverage. However, while sitting in a cafe today, enjoying said tea, it hit me how much I fricken love cafes.

Really, I do. My knowledge of their history is rather scarce - something to do with France, no doubt, as my high school French class taught me. But whoever decided that a chic little place with cool music and tasty pastries should be created so that overstressed peoples (such as college students and business employees) could stop in to have a tasty beverage and perhaps discuss the meaning of life, is truly my hero. Seriously. I have had two of the busiest weeks yet this year; last week being a mad race looking at possible apartments only to have our dreams shattered, glued back together, shattered again, then oddly resurrected. I was also preparing for a debate in a science and humanities class, stop trying to diagnose myself with every psychological disorder I read about in Abnormal Psych, and trying to keep from freaking out about the fact that I speak Italian just about as well as Brad Pitt in Inglorious Basterds (though without the fun Tennessee accent). Then this week, it hit me that Valentine's Day is coming up and I was thrown into a deep melancholy (for reasons which I will discuss elsewhere) from which I only emerged through joy of realizing that next year I will actually be living in a sweet 1940s hotel renovated into apartments (the outcome of all this very complicated and totally irrelevant at the moment) and through the delight of discussing exorcisms with one of my professors. Yes, exorcisms made me happy - deeply twisted, I know. But it's been one of those weeks. So a reprieve in a Dinkytown cafe while discussing why Bernard Marx from Brave New World is pretty whiney was sorely needed.

Perhaps it's the sort of people who are drawn to cafes that I like too. Hipsters may be a mystery to me, but there's something about those large-rimmed glasses and "that's so mainstream" cynicism that makes me feel oddly warm and fuzzy. I really need to spend more time away from caffeine, but honestly - where else can scribble away and stare off into space without being stared at as a total freak? There's a reason why writers hang out in these environments (the stimulants of coffee and sugar being, of course, an obvious great addition). I feel at comfortable there, like it's some sort of strange extension of the living space I've always wanted to have (with rough brick walls and fun lighting techniques). Of course, then there's the statistic I was given as to how the number one job for Cultural Studies majors involves being employed at a cafe. I wonder why... :)