All the tea in China...

IMG_4882, originally uploaded by zawelski.

(posted by Dave)
...is mostly green, and doesn’t involve tea bags at all. As may have mentioned, I’ve been drinking lots of lots of it to keep warm. (Did I mention that it’s cold here, by any chance?) (Yes, most of my posts will be cold-themed for the near future...) Here, then, is the Dave method of enjoying a perfect cup of tea.

1) Drop 2-3 generous pinches of dried green tea leaves at the bottom of your cup. This cup will usually have a lid, though you may also get a tall clear glass at some of the tea houses around town.

2) Wait five minutes or so and gulp down the first cup. Hint: if there are still tea leaves floating at the top, wait a bit longer. Is it super bitter? Does it make you shudder involuntarily as it goes down? Good, you added enough tea and waited long enough for it to steep.

3) Add more hot water and repeat the process every hour or so, or whenever you start to feel chilly. When the tea starts to taste like green colored hot water instead of tea, it’s probably a good time to switch to plain hot water. (Unless you like tossing and turning for three hours after going to bed until you realize that yes, green tea does indeed contain caffeine.)

4) Speaking of caffeine, enjoy the resulting buzz for the rest of the afternoon. Note the differences between a coffee buzz and a green tea buzz, and think that it probably expresses profound differences between the West and the East. Resolve to write a blog post about this, but never get around to it.

5) Hope your kidneys are in good shape!

6) Repeat steps one to five daily until mid-March. When it gets warm out, switch to cold water after your tea - unless you happen to be Chinese, in which case, keep drinking hot water year round. (It’s better for your stomach, don’t cha know...)