My love affair with tea began with my marriage to a wonderful Egyptian man in 1999.
I never guessed my marriage contract had a mandatory tea clause.
We started off a little rocky on that ground, but I’ve come to love the connoisseur side of my guy, thank God. A coffee drinker from way back, at first I just viewed him as a tea snob! Beware the Egyptian when he wants his way, he will woo you with chocolate-flavored sweet talk till you are delighted to fix his tea any way he likes!
After a few kisses, you’ll be sipping tea from his fingertips!
After the Seven Year Itch, I swore off coffee and now I never drink anything else except tea. Green, Black, Herbal, I’ve even made tea from the leaves of plum trees we grow in our organic fruit orchard here in rural South Carolina, and from the wild raspberries twining round their bases.
Now we never disagree on what to drink, but we sometimes disagree about why we enjoy the tea so much. Is the secret to the delicious taste in the leaf? The chemistry of fire, water and flora? The physiology of chemicals in the brain? Is it simply a mystery of science, or is it something more?
I believe tea tasting, not unlike wine tasting, is both a science and an art. Mastering the biology, chemistry, terminology, even the physiology and even the sociology of tea is only half the story. All that knowlege is fascinating, but does it help you explain the pleasure of a good cup of tea?
I didn’t think so!
If
The taste of tea is pure pleasure
and
The perception of pleasure is pure imagination
and
Art is the expression of imagination
and
Pleasure is the highest aim of art
then
Tea tasting is also an art!
From my way of thinking, that’s deliciously logical. Elegantly boring, perhaps, and definitely doesn’t enjoy the full advantage of play between words and imagination that a more artistic argument might offer. Naked Science may be elegant, but I’ve noticed she also wears beautiful dresses and creates gorgeous sunsets.
So I offer to prove the argument: Tea tasting is both science and art.
I offer you a cup of tea in the form of a dream.
Dream Up!
continue by clicking: My First Cup of Tea
