To tea or not to tea? That is the important question

To say I’ve been a tea drinker all my life would be only a mild overstatement. Some of my earliest memories carry me back to hot summer days as a sweaty, dirt-encrusted urchin.

Fresh inside from a backyard game of whatever, I would open the hulking door of our ancient fridge to stand and cool for a moment, then reach for the yellow, plastic Kool-Aid jug filled with Mom’s signature iced tea. Approximately one part tea to 10 parts sugar, it was like nectar to a hummingbird. Nothing else came close to slaking the thirst of a growing dirtball.

My siblings and I drank a water tower’s worth of this stuff every summer — a likely factor in my eventual christening with the physique-themed nickname of “Porky” by my older brother Pat.

Thankfully, even though the name stuck for decades, I was able to overcome my sugar habit and the resultant pudge just before high school. I doubt I’ll ever kick my addiction to tea, however. Hot or cold, tea is a part of my every day, and there is rarely a moment throughout that I don’t have a cup within arm’s reach. The habit makes me an easy-to-buy-for recipient of holiday gifts and travel treats.

When my oldest daughter Charlotte traveled to China during college, she brought me back a treasure trove of exotic teas — some bagged, some loose-leaf and even a few herbal teas in the form of dried flowers that would reanimate in the cup, blossoming like springtime.

When she and her husband returned from a business trip to Japan just a few weeks ago, I secretly hoped my reward for having spent the week with our grandkids would be some wild and wonderful exotic tea. (This is not to suggest seven glorious days of chaos and sleep deprivation with our little darlings weren’t a reward in and of themselves, but you get where I’m coming from.)

The kid did not disappoint. Not only did Charlotte hand me a tin of select loose-leaf tea, but I also received a new stainless-steel infuser to steep it in my cup. There were other treats as well, and because Kristin’s palate leans more toward sweet things than fermented leaves, she was presented with a variety of chocolates and other candies.

Once we got home, I put on a kettle of water, then dug into the bag that carried all our treasures. I pulled out a fancy-looking green box covered with traditional Japanese art and characters.

“Any idea what these things are?” I asked while poking at the fancy, paper-wrapped blobs inside.

“Well, they brought me chocolates and brought you tea,” Kristin replied. “Those certainly don’t look like chocolates to me.”

“Then they must be tea,” I said. “Yay!”

I then proceeded to unwrap a little green blob, drop it into my new infuser and dunk it into my boiling cup.

Two minutes. Nothing happened. Five minutes. Nothing happened.

“You know you’d expect some sort of aroma to be coming off the cup at this point,” I said, dunking the infuser in and out of the hot water. “So far I’m getting nothing.”

Spooning the shiny ball out of the cup, I found the blob had morphed into a seething green goop that was doing little more than welding itself to the insides of the screen. Only then did it occur to me to use my smartphone to translate the message on the mystery box.

I read the result aloud. “Enjoy this bite-sized candy with a bittersweet matcha flavor.”

“Or alternatively, melt bite-sized candy into a disgusting blob in a cup of boiling water!” Kristin laughed.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.