I can remember blue and white speckled china teapots. Heavy, black iron pots with bamboo handles. Green glazed ceramic. Some of them had built in tea strainers to keep the tea leaves out, some of them had removable filters, and some of them like this one just let the leaves come out with the tea.
Growing up, we would have pots of tea all day long. The leaves would get steeped over and over again until the tea was the color of water. We would even use the same tea the next day, or mix new leaves with old tea. The old tea leaves in the trash looked like bloated slugs and stained anything porous around it.
Bagged tea, tea lattes, loose leaf tea, iced tea, blended tea drinks, tea-ades, green, black, herbal, wild-crafted, and red teas. I am pretty certain that I have been drinking tea as long as I can recall.
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about coffee and how much I have been enjoying every single cup. But the other evening at Bloc, a good friend, local business owner and founder of MEM Tea Imports (316 Highland Ave, Somerville, 02144 ph: 617.627.9500), Mark Mooradian stopped by with a couple different kinds of tea that he had been working on. One was called the “Green and Red” and combined red Rooibos with a green tea. It was delicious. Even more amazing was the wildcrafted tea off the side of Mount Olympus. They were large green dried flowers, fuzzy and crinkly.
These teas are still in the development phase, but the tea that I have been drinking pots and pots of lately is the Linden Flower tea. It is light yellow, takes close to 10 minutes to steep if you want any flavor, and kind of smells like dirty dish water, but is the perfect balance of honey sweetness and a buttery savory in a liquid. The color, flavor and temperature are all warming, invigorating and calming at the same time.
As much coffee as I drink, I am certain that tea holds a very special place in my life will always be a part of my day.
