Tea For Two, and Two For Tea(aw heck I just want enough tea for me!)

   Do you have an object in your kitchen that you use daily? That you would be lost without?

  I’ll give you a couple of moments to think about it…. ((clock ticks…ticks…ticks…ticks….))

  OK, so what did you come up with? A coffee maker for your daily java? What about
a waffle iron because Sunday wouldn’t be the same without the weekly
waffle? Maybe your thing is a nutcracker, cuz, ya know, ya just have to
have your daily macadamia.

  My lost-without-daily-kitchen-item is my tea pot.

Not my yellow Le Creuset
kettle that sits on the stove to heat water, though that is an
important item in our house. Nor is it a typical little tea pot that
you think of

when you think “tea party” a la the Mad Hatter and Louis Carroll. No, my special friend, my good buddy in the morning is my Bodum Assam teapot.

*sigh*.
While it isn’t the world’s most cleverly crafted utensil, nor is it the
most aesthetically beautiful, and it isn’t the prettiest of the teapots
I have ::I do happen to collect teapots a la the Mad Hatter::, it
is by far the most useful. See this little glass friend has a strainer
basket that sits down in the middle of it. It holds over a quart of
steaming water. It takes a couple of tablespoons of dried, smoked,
ripened,  scented, blended, and lovingly packed in tins or
hermetically sealed tea that has made its way into my greedy, erm,
eager little hands.

  You see, I love tea. LOVE IT I tell you. You know that friend or those friends you have that are total coffee snobs? The ones that ONLY buy the finest beans,

fresh
roasted from a little shop that has been owned by the same family since
before Moses was a babe? The ones that grind those beans with the
funky, exotic names, ever day fresh, with a grinder that was especially
made and calibrated to grind the perfect size, and is maintained more
lovingly than a ’67 Jag with the original paint job? Those people that
make their coffee with water at a precise temperature in a carefully researched and purchased high end cafe’ maker ::no simple coffee maker for them, no no!:: Well, now you know of someone who has turned into almost as big a nutcase about her tea.

   Yes people…I have become a tea snob. It all started at a local shop with the purchase of
tins of loose tea from Harrod’s of London. ECSTASY! I as of that point
didn’t have my little Bodum beauty, so I used my coffee pot ::only ever used for tea, by the way, please take note::
to make this delightful brew. To try and compare the taste of freshly
brewed, high quality tea to the ubiquitous American favorite of a
Lipton Tea bag is like comparing a pair of Prada shoes to something
from Payless, or to compare gramma’s famous pot pie to a frozen 49c
rock from the local discount shopping market.

  Basically, there is no comparison.

   So therein lies the start of my affection with REAL TEA. No disrespect to Sir Lipton or his tea bags ::I happen to love Lipton Yellow Label loose tea, I am drinking some at this very moment…*slurp*::
but honestly, once you try loose tea, or even the Queen of tea bags,
Red Rose, you will lose all desire to ever drink “tea” made from Lipton
tea bags again. I have given most of Lipton tea bags in fact and don’t
plan to purchase any more. I have kept a bit on hand for friends who
like it ::shudder::
but I no longer drink it myself. I was in my glory when I found a shop
at Rockvale Plaza in Lancaster that sold nothing but tea. Tea and
teapots. An entire wall of loose tea. Another whole wall of varieties
of bagged tea. OH… My… GOODNESS! I was like a chocolate junkie let
loose in Godiva’s chocolate factory ::by
the way, it is well documented that the best trade teas are loose teas,
while “most” bagged teas are lesser grade and of lesser quality::.
I want to go back soon and pick up some more loose teas of various
types. Variety is the spice of life and all that after all. Mmmm…

  Unfortunately last week my Assam teapot suffered a fatal injury. ::sniff:: I
was moving the teapot when I went to take a plate out and the teapot
bumped hard against the top of the shelf directly above. The ENTIRE
front cracked but didn’t shatter.

  I shattered though. ::snifffff…my precious…I miss my precious::

  I
searched today in two different places to replace my Assam teapot. NO
luck. There is a new kitchen store locally where I did find the teapot,
but GOOD NIGHT NURSE! They wanted close to $30 for it. I think I paid
$13 for it originally at Tuesday Morning. I looked there tonight for a
replacement for the cracked-but-not-shattered Assam teapot. No
go. ::sniff again…and blast and whimper, moan, complain:: 

 
Dang it. See what addictions do to you? I am going to go broke getting
in my tea daily fix. But, obviously, first I need to replace
my favoritest-largest I could find-able to see the tea and know its
perfectly brewed-doesn’t five the tea a funky flavor because it was
glass-neat little buddy of a tea pot.

 
I just hope after I wind up paying through the nose for the replacement
I have enough money to get some tea to brew in it. What good is
the teapot without the tea to fill it? The 30 packages of tea I have
now are JUST not enough…of course not! Not to someone with a
perfectly obvious addition to loose-leaf tea such as myself.  

                                                   
                            Kathie