Well, it's Monday morning and I have a stressful day ahead of me... so
I figured I'd start a light topic (plus I'm new so I figured it would
help me know where people are coming from). How did you get your start
in tea?

My start came from an odd place: Karate Kid. More specifically Part 2
and 3. Part 2 was a terrible film, but it featured the Tea Ceremony.
The bamboo utensils, the whisk, the Matcha tea powder. And part 3
featured Bonsai trees. Even being about 6 years old I was intrigued by
both and that began it all. I studied Bonsai and have now been growing
them for over 10 years. I researched tea to figure out that ceremony
and all that goes with it. I began to draw away from standard organized
American religion and follow a more Eastern path. I read "The Book of
Tea" by Okakura and then the "Tao Te Ching." I then started my first
semester of college over 8 hours away from home and by luck befriended
a middle-aged Thai woman who owned a Asian market a block from my room.
An unlikely friendship but I learned a great deal about Asian culture,
food, lore, mindset, and tea. I then began to really get into tea and
it all changed to another level when I was at Penn State University and
my father (my father had been in Korea on the DMZ back in the day and
that also had me interested in stories of Korea and asian culture.) and
me stepped into a small Korean Grocery. The owner offered us a Jasmine
Iced Tea which he made by hand with some amazing technique brewing the
tea in a Yixing pot, using pure sugar cane syrup he had made, and all
this for $2.00 for two iced teas. I was mesmerized by it all. That
started my collection of Yixing teapots as well. I started by drinking
Jasmine green tea loose from his store and that started it all.

What's your story?

"Dominic T." > wrote in message

> What's your story?

At my grand-parents, after the dinner, we'd drink herb tea instead of
coffee. That was good, then I tried other sorts of herb teas, German fruit
teas, flavored teas. Also, there was always jasmine tea in pseudo-Chinese
restaurants and mint tea after couscous. Much later tea, I drunk good tea
not-flavored (that was expensive, and uncommon in my family). And I tried
others, on my trips.

Kuri

I actually hated tea as a kid, because I thought it couldn't compare to
soda or coffee for boldness of flavor. I started having green tea ice
cream and mochi and really liked it, so I figured I'd give green tea a
try. I started with jasmine boba tea (still a guilty pleasure!) and I
tried a few hot green teas and was hooked from there.

> Well, it's Monday morning and I have a stressful day ahead of me... so
> I figured I'd start a light topic (plus I'm new so I figured it would
> help me know where people are coming from). How did you get your start
> in tea?

I've had a facination with tea for as long as I can remember. Must have been
that childs tea set my mom bought me when I was 5 or 6. For the longest time
I was restricted to herbal teas. Not because I was young, but because I was
Mormon. Mormons arn't allowed to drink tea or coffee.
At about 16 I began to doubt my relidgion, and at 19, I left. Which freed me
to drink all the coffee and tea I wanted! Coffee was very available, but
lipton kinda sucked.
Then one wondeful new years, my husband and I went to Salt Lake's 'First
Night' celabration, and a tea house (the beehive tea house to be exact) was
offering tea leaf readings. The tea there was exceptional! The rest is
history
Marlene

I got my start in High School. After growing up in a coffee culture
here in the south, I was introduced to loose teas by my History
teacher. He was quite popular in his eccentric ways...brewing various
and sundry loose teas and selling each cup for a quarter to the
students. He got me into tea connoisseuring and I was hooked.

Mike

I was raised in Asia so I can not remember a time I didn't drink tea.
As a westerner being raised in Asia I never found Asian culture or tea
culture "odd" it was just part of everyday life. Culture shock came
when I came back to the States at 14 being most Asian in habit to find
a whole country of backward, coffee drinking barbarians!LOL j/king. But
seriously there was a cultural adjustment and now im my 40's I find
myself with one foot in the east and one in the west. I am pleased that
30 years later cultural views are becoming more accepting of each
other. I am also pleased that tea culture has grown and continues to
grow in the west.

always liked tea. But then I had a British girlfriend who had it every
night and it kinda got me hooked.

I had an Anglo friend who was raised in Japan and when he came to the states
he hung out in Japanese markets because that's where he felt most at home.

... so
I figured I'd start a light topic (plus I'm new so I figured it would
help me know where people are coming from). How did you get your start
in tea?

Well, In our family, half English and half American, what else could
you drink? I believe that My grandma kept a coffee pot going in her
home, but grandpa drank mostly tea. He even had a moustache cup,
which had a sipping space below a moustache guard. Very necessary in
the early part of the 20th century if you didn't want to have a soggy
cookie duster when you were done with your tea.

Dad came from the mountains of Appelachia. His family, though english,
drank coffee. But in our home, my parents drank both. I wasn't
allowed to drink tea til I could afford to buy my own but it has been
my drink of choice ever since.

I tried to learn to drink coffee for a few years, but I'm allergic to
it so tea it is. I've only begun to branch out into gourmet tea,
Twinnings, Harrogate, etc. Before that, Liptons was the best
available, and my husband still drinks it almost exclusively.

Kitty

I moved to China and stumbled into a teashop on mistake whereafter a
beautiful girl made gongfu tea for me. Been hooked ever since.

"Dominic T." > wrote in message
oups.com... asked:

How did you get your start
> in tea?

Commercial tea bags, to Twinings varietals in bags, to Twinings loose. These
are all available in most US grocery stores.
That led to the realization that there was a whole universe of new tastes
and varieties in loose tea.
That led to some Asian groceries, Ten Ren and to McNulty's, a coffee and tea
store in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. They carry many varieties of loose
tea and packaged loose teas from the UK and elsewhere.
That led to learning about mail order sources and the rest is history.

Warren




"Dominic T." > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Well, it's Monday morning and I have a stressful day ahead of me... so
> I figured I'd start a light topic (plus I'm new so I figured it would
> help me know where people are coming from). How did you get your start
> in tea?
>
> My start came from an odd place: Karate Kid. More specifically Part 2
> and 3. Part 2 was a terrible film, but it featured the Tea Ceremony.
> The bamboo utensils, the whisk, the Matcha tea powder. And part 3
> featured Bonsai trees. Even being about 6 years old I was intrigued by
> both and that began it all. I studied Bonsai and have now been growing
> them for over 10 years. I researched tea to figure out that ceremony
> and all that goes with it. I began to draw away from standard organized
> American religion and follow a more Eastern path. I read "The Book of
> Tea" by Okakura and then the "Tao Te Ching." I then started my first
> semester of college over 8 hours away from home and by luck befriended
> a middle-aged Thai woman who owned a Asian market a block from my room.
> An unlikely friendship but I learned a great deal about Asian culture,
> food, lore, mindset, and tea. I then began to really get into tea and
> it all changed to another level when I was at Penn State University and
> my father (my father had been in Korea on the DMZ back in the day and
> that also had me interested in stories of Korea and asian culture.) and
> me stepped into a small Korean Grocery. The owner offered us a Jasmine
> Iced Tea which he made by hand with some amazing technique brewing the
> tea in a Yixing pot, using pure sugar cane syrup he had made, and all
> this for $2.00 for two iced teas. I was mesmerized by it all. That
> started my collection of Yixing teapots as well. I started by drinking
> Jasmine green tea loose from his store and that started it all.
>
> What's your story?
>

"Dominic T." > wrote in message
oups.com...
> Well, it's Monday morning and I have a stressful day ahead of me... so
> I figured I'd start a light topic (plus I'm new so I figured it would
> help me know where people are coming from). How did you get your start
> in tea?

Growing up in Honolulu with parents who enjoyed eating out at least once a
week meant that many Chinese, Korean, and Japanese meals were consumed - all
with tea. It was a natural part of life. In American-style restaurants, Dad
drank the usual Lipton tea while Mom drank coffee and I had soda (I
experimented a lot with Lipton, but we never did get along and I eventually
gave up trying). At home, Mom drank coffee, Dad drank buttermilk, milk and
water; and I had juice or water.

On my own, a friend introduced me to chamomile and catnip teas and someone
else's mom introduced me to Constant Comment. That got me to trying
different supermarket teas.

Then, I discovered the joy of the fresher, loose black, green, white teas,
and blends.

--
~~Bluesea~~ a very happy camper
Spam is great in musubi but not in email.
Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.

bluesea!
i too am a local hawaiian...but we mainly drank PLAIN oriental tea at home;
can't remember what kind--whatever mom had. eating out at local chinese or
japanese resturants we drank the tea (plain) they served with the meal. to
this day, i cannot abide sweetening/milking oriental-type teas. strong
black teas, i've learned to drink with sweetenings and milk, mainly because
i like it that way, as with chai. we had juice at mealtimes at home.
hailing from puunui (upper reaches of liliha street) and i really do like
spam :-)

Bluesea wrote:
> "Dominic T." > wrote in message
> oups.com...
>> Well, it's Monday morning and I have a stressful day ahead of me...
>> so I figured I'd start a light topic (plus I'm new so I figured it
>> would help me know where people are coming from). How did you get
>> your start in tea?
>
> Growing up in Honolulu with parents who enjoyed eating out at least
> once a week meant that many Chinese, Korean, and Japanese meals were
> consumed - all with tea. It was a natural part of life. In
> American-style restaurants, Dad drank the usual Lipton tea while Mom
> drank coffee and I had soda (I experimented a lot with Lipton, but we
> never did get along and I eventually gave up trying). At home, Mom
> drank coffee, Dad drank buttermilk, milk and water; and I had juice
> or water.
>
> On my own, a friend introduced me to chamomile and catnip teas and
> someone else's mom introduced me to Constant Comment. That got me to
> trying different supermarket teas.
>
> Then, I discovered the joy of the fresher, loose black, green, white
> teas, and blends.
>
> --
> ~~Bluesea~~ a very happy camper
> Spam is great in musubi but not in email.
> Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.

Which tea goes with spam musubi?

My family kept to British ways so I can't remember when I had my first
tea. We had tea for breakfast and in the afternoon, and I probably had
the first sip when my mother deemed me old enough for
caffeine--probably when I was seven or eight. My mother being very
traditional, we'd usually have English Breakfast in the morning and
Darjeeling in the afternoon, with the odd Ceylon thrown in. Mostly
Twinings tea bags, except when guests were around or my mother could be
bothered with loose teas. Boarding school and university broadened my
horizons, chiefly thanks to a group of Asian friends. Then I started
working in a tea shop and that was it. I couldn't afford most of their
teas, but got hooked anyway.

Howzit!

Guava juice was the mainstay for us. No orange or apple or grapefruit, not
even passion fruit or pineapple except when we went up to the Dole hut by
Wahiawa. Then, we always drank lots of pineapple juice and ate the fresh
pineapple. Tea was only in restaurants except a girlfriend's family had iced
tea with dinner...I tried it once then drank water because I didn't care for
it...pro'lly Lipton's, lol.

I think the Chinese green and white teas make fine cold tea as well as hot.
I only like them straight, but I'll put honey sometimes in black teas.

Liliha, huh? That's close. I was off Nuuanu. Used to eat lunch at Chun
Hoon's with my dad every Sat.

Spam with eggs and rice. Spam omelette. Spam musubi. Mmmm...ONO!

--
~~Bluesea~~
Spam is great in musubi but not in email.
Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.

"Darawen Littlestich" > wrote in message
. ..
> bluesea!
> i too am a local hawaiian...but we mainly drank PLAIN oriental tea at
home;
> can't remember what kind--whatever mom had. eating out at local chinese
or
> japanese resturants we drank the tea (plain) they served with the meal.
to
> this day, i cannot abide sweetening/milking oriental-type teas. strong
> black teas, i've learned to drink with sweetenings and milk, mainly
because
> i like it that way, as with chai. we had juice at mealtimes at home.
> hailing from puunui (upper reaches of liliha street) and i really do like
> spam :-)
>
> Bluesea wrote:
> > "Dominic T." > wrote in message
> > oups.com...
> >> Well, it's Monday morning and I have a stressful day ahead of me...
> >> so I figured I'd start a light topic (plus I'm new so I figured it
> >> would help me know where people are coming from). How did you get
> >> your start in tea?
> >
> > Growing up in Honolulu with parents who enjoyed eating out at least
> > once a week meant that many Chinese, Korean, and Japanese meals were
> > consumed - all with tea. It was a natural part of life. In
> > American-style restaurants, Dad drank the usual Lipton tea while Mom
> > drank coffee and I had soda (I experimented a lot with Lipton, but we
> > never did get along and I eventually gave up trying). At home, Mom
> > drank coffee, Dad drank buttermilk, milk and water; and I had juice
> > or water.
> >
> > On my own, a friend introduced me to chamomile and catnip teas and
> > someone else's mom introduced me to Constant Comment. That got me to
> > trying different supermarket teas.
> >
> > Then, I discovered the joy of the fresher, loose black, green, white
> > teas, and blends.
> >
> > --
> > ~~Bluesea~~ a very happy camper
> > Spam is great in musubi but not in email.
> > Please take out the trash before sending a direct reply.

My grandmother's cousin...I called my Aunt because I was so young...was
a missionary in China for most of her adult life. I went and stayed
summers with her when I was nine until she died a few years later. She
and I used to sit and have hot green tea together and she would tell me
Chinese children's stories and stories of her time in China. Because
of her I have a great love of hot tea, Chinese art and decor, and even
worked at a Chinese restaurant while attending university. The owners
and I got along famously.