I find it hard to believe that I’ve never written about how much I love tea.

I love tea.

blue flowers are apparently delicious

I love the civility of it, watching it steep, smelling the leaves, going to tea shops and perusing each glass jar (or giant tin) for the perfect herbal blend (I have yet to find a decaffeinated tea I really enjoy).  But I know very little about tea, so let’s get briefly Wiki-educated:

All tea is made from the same plant, and according to the method used to process the leaves, can be used to make Black, Green, Yellow, White, Oolong, or something called “post-fermented tea,” which sounds gross.  Different water temperatures are ideal for brewing each type of tea.  In the United States, most tea is consumed cold, as iced tea, while in Asian/Middle Eastern countries, hot tea is consumed daily in almost all households, and offered to guests as they first enter.  I wish we did that here.  Thus ends the lesson.

Moroccan tea cups look something like this

I found a delicious Earl Grey with blue flowers from a tea shop on Melrose called T Salon that has since closed.  I still struggle with spelling gray with an ‘a’.  I have Tazo Earl Grey just about every morning at Office Job.

I have vivid memories of drinking piping hot, super sweet tea at the Moroccan restaurant in Paris with my family in 1997, along with a dessert of sweet, ground-up meat wrapped in filo pastry with powdered sugar and a bit of chocolate drizzled on top (the kids all knew it was pigeon and ate it anyway).  That was my first experience of Moroccan tea.  Now, every year for my birthday we go to Tagine, a small Moroccan place where we always have some hot, sweet tea.