To me, tea is a pleasure. It's my morning treat, my beverage at work, and my evening relaxer. It can be the finish to a nice dinner out. I like to sip it on the side stoop while supervising the cats' outings, and have it along with scones or pastries for breakfast or a light lunch. I also enjoy having a friend come by to share a pot of tea. In the past year, I've been brewing two to four pots of tea each day at work; these are shared by several people in the office.

I've been drinking tea since childhood, although back then I just had it when I was ill, with a lot of honey. It's one of my mom's standard remedies. I started drinking tea more regularly in high school and frequently in college. Now I drink tea all day long.

There's an extensive and wonderful variety of fine teas to be had, far beyond the "generic" grocery store brands of tea bags that I grew up with. Tea isn't expensive and doesn't have to be fancy or frilly (although it can be and that can be fun).

My usual cuppa is black tea, which I have with milk. I also drink green, oolong, and white teas off and on; those I take straight. Flavored teas add to the variety and some fit the mood perfectly at times.

I buy loose, or bulk, tea almost exclusively now. Tea bags are simple to use, but for me, they have a few problems. They're often made using small pieces of the tea leaf, known as fannings, so they're not always good quality tea (there are exceptions to this). You get a premeasured portion of tea and I like to experiment varying the amount of tea I use to brew a cup or pot. You can't see the tea; it's nice to watch the leaves dance and unfurl as you add water and it's also nice to see and smell the leaves after brewing. Loose tea is less expensive than the equivalent amount of the same tea in bags. And, there are a lot more teas available loose. On the other hand, sometimes the convenience of a tea bag is great. It's easier to take tea bags traveling. And some teas I like are not readily available loose, if at all.

Although I've drunk tea for decades, I didn't really know that much about it until later in life. I've been learning a lot in the past decade or so, primarily from reading pages on the web, the newsgroup rec.food.drink.tea, and several mailing lists. Plus I've been trying a big variety of teas at home and work. I also visited some tearooms, which is a great experience.

Tea is an interesting topic...here are some webpages with good information. A lot of vendors sell tea mailorder and have pages on the net. You will find lists of vendor pages included on some of the links listed here. I haven't put any direct links to vendors here because there are so many and there are already extensive lists on other pages, much better lists than I can build.

Tea and Sympathy
rec.food.drink.tea FAQ
The tea page
The Beginner's Guide to Tea on the Web



Here are some other peoples' tea pages that I've encountered (there are many more out there, have fun exploring!):

Tea with Friends and Welcome Home by Elizabeth Knight
The Cat-Tea Corner
The fine list of tea shops and tearooms in the US and Canada at the Cat-Tea Corner
It's Teatime!

Dee's Crafts - Tea time!

Leaves of Tea [ Previous | Random site | Next ] This Leaves of Tea Ring website is owned by marta's tea page Welcome to all lovers of the leaf! [ List all sites | Ring home | Join us! ]

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Amazing Woman's 'The Tea Ring' by catalen [ Join Now | Ring Hub | Random | << Prev | Next >> This is a ring for Tea lovers! If you love to drink tea, you'll love this ring. We offer information about tea rooms, tea vendors, tea publications, afternoon teas Family safe websites only.

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