Day 6: My First Cup of Tea

You can never get a cup of tea large enough 

or a book long enough to suit me.”

― C.S. Lewis

Tea. What a strange and wonderful thing it is. Really it's nothing more than a bit of dried of leaves. But even so it has the power to make a good book great and a cold day warmer. Some of the best conversations have spawned around a teapot and there’s nothing more comforting than wrapping your hands around the warmth of a freshly made cup.

I can still vividly recall the time when I had my first cup of Typhoo tea. I was 13 years-old when my dad and I took a trip to the UK with our church group. One of the first nights we stayed in an old brick flat just outside London where some University students had an extra room and were kind enough to put us up.

The walls in the apartment were covered in wallpaper and the place had an old smell about it. It wasn't bad; it was just a cozy odor like one would find in an antique store. It was as if there were layers and layers of wood stoked fires, sweet pipe smoke, and good cooking that had soaked into the heavy wood and brick. Several inset bookshelves lined the room and were bursting with hardbound encyclopedias and old textbooks. The crumbling hearth had contained hundreds of years worth of fires and was blackened, charred, and ripe with age.

We spoke with the students for quite some time. They asked many questions about life in the states (particularly about the space center) and we inquired about what it was like living in the UK. Eventually one of them asked if we wanted a cup of tea. I never really had tea before. At least not English tea. I had tried a sip of coffee once and didn't care for it; for some reason I figured that tea was probably similar. If I were ever going to try tea, the proper place and time was at that moment. So I went ahead and said yes. One of the students took off for the kitchen and returned with a large plate filled with all of the necessities. Teapot, teacups, scones, cream, sugar, etc. We were asked what we wanted in our tea and then observed as she began to prepare it. 

Now there are many differing opinions concerning the order in which you should prepare the tea. Debates have turned violent and families have been torn apart because of the controversy surrounding differing methods. There are even scientific papers arguing the best way to prepare tea based on research done at the molecular level. 

The manner in which it was prepared for us was the following: cream, tea, and then sugar. Since then I've discussed the matter with a few Brits and their methods tend to vary, but the CTS method is the most common. However, discussing tea with the British can be a touchy subject since the whole Boston Harbor incident.

"Just tea for me, thanks."

After the first cautious sip, I became hooked. In fact, I drank the tea so quickly that it made one of the students laugh. 

“He likes his tea!” she exclaimed in amusement.

She went ahead poured me another and I realized that tea wasn't something to be finished so swiftly; it should be savored. It was in that moment that I became a tea drinker.

Since returning home from that trip to England as a 13 year-old, I have tried hundreds of different teas from all over the world. I drink it on a daily basis and have my own methods for preparing different types. I still subscribe to the CTS method (or CTH if I substitute honey for sugar) and after all these years, Typhoo tea is still my all time favorite.