Crossing One's Tea...

I dont know what you are addicted to , but off late i am addicted to Tea . It is a fact that i think i do have very few friends, and when you really need to talk to someone, i think over cigarettes and Tea is like the best thing. Sammy and Ryan would know better. Personally any kind of Tea would do for me - be it Green Tea , White Tea , Herbal Tea or my favourite Disco Chai. No you dont start dancing after having it its just a name given to a Tea by some Mallu Cafe nearby.It is funny how an Indian sitting in Dubai is writing about something that the Chinese discovered and the Japanese added flavour to. The reason being that i am so fed up of my portfolio that i am surfing endlessly on various sites on Tea out of all things possible.:S

Anyways it is believed that the Chinese discovered tea when some tea leaves accidentally fell into a pot of boiling water. Now my question is – who threw in the milk and sugar?
I am not the only one who is addicted to tea of any kind. Over the years, Indian culture & customs have been influenced by tea. Customs were influenced less by tea and more by tea smugglers, Lol.

It is said that an American improvised on tea and came up with the concept of “Iced Tea.” What beats me is that they did it in 1904 (at the 1904 World Fair St. Louis) when refrigerators were not available in a normal household. And even if refrigerators were available ….how did some random tea leaves fly into a refrigerator? Wasn’t the refrigerator door closed?
Americans live by improvising. Besides the telephone, I know of nothing that has been invented (or discovered) by the Americans. Why…they needed Christopher Colombus, an Italian sailor working for a Spanish queen, to discover their own country – the Americas!

Maybe you aren’t aware of this….in the United States of America, 90% of the tea consumed is black. And in India and Dubai 90% of the tea consumed is white (with milk that is). Ironic isn’t it - white men having black tea and black men having white tea?

According to the tea historian, whose article I have been reading for the time being , after becoming popular in China, Japan and America….tea started filtering into Europe in the 17th century. Now, my question is….if tea was all filtered…how did the Europeans ever get the tea leaves? And what a big filter it should have been. The one that I use in my house to filter tea into the tea cup has a diameter of ten centimeters.
In Europe, tea first filtered into Holland and France. In Holland it is popular to this day, but in France wine has taken over. There were a few benefits that wine offered over and above tea, and we are not talking about the alcohol content.
Some of the differences that the French saw before they shifted away from tea are:
• Wine didn’t need a heating unit

• Wine didn’t need to be filtered

• Wine didn’t need milk to be added

After such a long, boring article….if only someone can make me a cup of tea...