… I was consulted about tea, of all things, at work last week. It was too funny. There was a Chinese delegation coming and the director wanted her assistant to prepare loose tea…the assistant contacted me in a panic, saying “I hear you’re an expert…” (Um, no, I just walk to Teaism, don’t think that qualifies me as “expert.”) Oh, the kicker was that she (the director) wanted to, for sentimental reasons, serve this million-year-old oolong that her dead mom left her. It smelled god-awful but tasted… okay. But there are no words to describe how truly shiteous the ancient ceylon tea she had tasted (we did a taste test first). The best way I can describe is that it tasted like hot pickle juice. I think I convinced them not to serve that one. I got a headache and my mouth didn’t recover for five hours after just one teensy sip. And I talked her out of attempting to serve the oolong kung-fu cha style at a business meeting. There could have been an international incident.

In other tea news, I did high tea again with friends over the weekend at The Willard and someone else must have complained, because this time the tea was loose. (yay!) But jeeze louise, even though I enjoyed it, $50 is still so steep (no pun intended!).

Yours in tea and sympathy,