Rediscovering Herb Tea

While the rest of the world consumes tea as its primary hot beverage, in college I took a liking to coffee.  Our cafeteria offered a bottomless cup for 10 cents, which I would typically pair with a bow tie pastry and eat either alone or with a friend should one come by before my first class.  Later, as exams or other deadlines approached, I learned that I could stay awake and attentive with coffee at night.  I got an electric percolator, a bright orange one, that served me well for many years.  Once I started residency, living on the Harvard campus with my own money to spend, I expanded the flavors of coffee available and the means of brewing it, a treat that captivates me to this day, particularly since the varieties have expanded and can  be made in small quantities by k-cups with no waste or spoilage, though with some sacrifice of ultimate flavor.

In high school, maybe even junior high, I would brew tea bags, usually tinged with bottled lemon juice, more so when ill than other times, but also at night, though soda was the primary beverage.

Once married and living among Harvard students, which I was not, herb teas entered my palate.  I liked the ones from Celestial Seasonings, which many decades later let me tour their factory near Denver.  It had some advantages over coffee.  Consuming one cup at a time, it could be purchased a few tea bags at a time, lasted forever, came in endless varieties, cost less than soda per serving, and tasted good, though it lacked that jolt that drove me to coffee.  So when I went out to The Coffee Connection on Harvard Square or a pastry shop, I would get a specialty coffee, often in a French Press which was also a novelty at the time, and sample varieties, though at home I learned to brew supermarket coffee, no longer in my electric percolator but one serving at a time filtered through a plastic cone, which I still have.  Herb tea became a special diversion, though not a staple beverage.  We still kept some in the pantry, eventually using it up.

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Other brands like Bigelows and Twinings would go on sale, all with flavor enticements that exceeded their reality, while Celestial Seasonings had a higher price, no strings or individual sachets, but a better tasting blend.  Still, coffee not only dominated but with the availability of k-cups that allowed variety though mediocre sensory experience, it largely took over.  More recently, I have rediscovered herb tea.  Caffeine had started getting out of hand, causing me to restrict myself.  Specialty beans, purchasable loose in small amounts for home grinding got rather expensive and unlike my mill grinder that allowed one cup at a time, my burr grinder had a hopper that had to be kept filled.  Definitely an opportunity to give Celestial Seasonings a second chance.  They obliged with a sale and to expand the repertoire, included coupons in some of the packages good for later discounts.  

Now I have about a dozen boxes at my right hand on my kitchen island.  I'm starting to show preferences.  Zingers have always been my favorite, the spices other than peppermint less so.  I got a terrific Bengal Blend which seems to be dominated by cinnamon and cloves.  The ones intended to change my mood: Sleepy Time and Tension Tamer, usually don't.  There are also variety packs, which I have but have not opened.  So the Zingers in their various forms dominate.  But after the daily coffee ration has been attained.