Doodle 041 | Ode to Tea

map the leaves to dry,

cross waters; let balladry

 sail: strut ‘cross the tongue

—

 Wednesdays are tipping points–half of the week is gone and the weekend is drawing near. You owe yourself a break. If you are a tea lover or you are trying tea for the first time, enjoy each sip and stay awesome.

Image by Vee-O

Why I Drink My Tea Without Sugar

Earl grey, man, earl grey. It sucks when you run out of it.

The box of earl grey on my bookshelf is now only useful for storing index cards until I buy more sachets of earl grey, which will likely be in their own box. This reminded me of another item to add to my to-do list.

314. Find decent earl grey sachets/tea bags and buy them.

If you have recommendations for tea, please let me know. I’m not well versed at all in tea.

Fair warning: The following is boring, brief anecdote of why I drink tea. If you just came to see the doodle, then scroll to the bottom and skip the entry entirely which says, in TL;DR terms: I drink sugarless tea because it makes me feel miserable.

But anyways, a pattern in my recent posts is the continuous presence of a trip down memory lane — like everything else that reminds me of everything else, earl grey tea reminded me of the first time I tried a London Fog latte.

I hated it.

And although I hyperlinked (above) an article by Kara Newman of Tasting Table which praises this latte, I’m going to have to disagree due to personal preference and the somewhat pretentious history lesson of yours truly.

The first time I tried tea was when I was around 6 years old, when I sipped a little of my grandfather’s green tea after asking him for a small teacup of the blend. It was bitter “hot leaf juice.” As a child, my mind made the instant association, equating all tea with bitterness — literally and emotionally — a generalization that will soon be subverted the moment I tried jasmine tea a few years ago at a small dim sum place.

The tea experience was not life-changing, but it was significantly less bitter. And my mom laughed after I told her about grandpa’s tea.

“Obviously. Green tea is supposed to be bitter. He steeps it longer.”

“Why?”

“It tastes better stronger.”

Some other time that I was at Second Cup, I saw the menu and didn’t feel like coffee or a smoothie. Instead, I decided to be a cheapskate for a day and picked the cheapest (or almost cheapest) drink on the menu: tea. Earl grey tea sounded like the cooler name among the teas, and I chose it on a whim.

And I don’t know why, but I got it. I finally got why my grandpa liked drinking bitter tea. It tasted sturdier and richer, and the aroma hit stronger. It was the most pleasant drink I had in a long time.

…is what I wanted to say, but it’s only true if I think about it long enough.

No, the real truth of why I still drink bitter tea and steep my tea for over two hours is because it makes me feel miserable. It makes work feel like work. It makes life seem feel like those nihilistic teenage years again. And it grounds me to my sardonic side.

So if London Fog latte is the sweeter side of life, then instead of tasting delightful, it tasted saccharine and wrong. The vanilla and milk blocked out the bergamot and natural bitterness of earl grey, almost like an “ignorance is bliss” approach to life. Almost like a sweet lie that covered up the bitter truth.

I concentrate better with tea because I felt misery each time I took a gulp. Yet because earl grey tea provides a lovely aroma that smells untainted with sugar, it felt like it just…was. It just was.

So the long answer to the question of why I drink my tea without sugar: I don’t know, honestly. I just drink it, and I like drinking unpleasantness.

Or the better question: Why do I drink my tea bitter at all? It might have come from my grandfather, who never struck me as miserable, or it might have come from my weird way of appreciating misery. Tea doesn’t keep me awake or keep me calm or trigger that smiling-tea-aficionado-face in the ads.

I guess bitter earl grey tea is paradoxically wonderful because it’s unafraid of being both fragrant and miserable at the same time. The reward is managing to finish the abominable charming thing.

I would have used “tea watercolor” but again, ran out of tea in the house. Note to self: Will be buying more and downing the suckers in the near future.

Just realized that it’s been 9 days of posts, 9 days of randomness, and 9 days of doodles with stick figures wearing top hats.