The teacher and his tea

When asked, "What's your favourite drink?" Usually my reply would be tea. Why tea? Is it because I'm a tea...cher? Ha ha ha ha. Hmm... why do I like this beverage? To me, tea is refreshing and there are so many different types of tea. So you won't get bored. For a nice refreshing drink after a long class, I take my tea black with sugar and ice. Depending on where I buy it, it can be Ceylon Tea or plain old Malaysian Tea from Cameron Highlands.

Other types of tea that are good to drink are like Chinese Tea and Green Tea. For these teas you don't add sugar. Chinese tea is especially good with a meal of Dim Sum. I like my tea with lots of ice but some people like it hot. You can take most tea with honey as well. I remember one time in Thailand where they served Lemon Grass tea. Lemon Grass is a plant or herb found in most Asian cooking, in has a lemony tangy smell. It is used in dishes like Satay, curries and Tomyam.

What's Cockroach Tea? Ha ha ha.. It was sometime back, I bought tea from a coffee shop and my fellow teachers said "Hey Teacher Jason, there's a something in your drink." I didn't believe them as I thought they were trying to pull my leg. I dismissed it but they were insistent So I had a look. Wow! It was a drowned cockroach in my tea. I told the coffee shop fella about it and he just coolly poured the tea away and rinsed the container and poured in more tea! Later in class, I had a hard time deciding whether to drink the tea or not....I had a few sips....yuck?

MORE ABOUT TEA

Tea is made from the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the Camellia sinensis plant. It is prepared and cured by various methods. For some people "Tea" also refers to the aromatic beverage prepared from the cured leaves by combination with hot or boiling water. After water, tea is the most widely-consumed beverage in the world. It has a cooling, slightly bitter, refreshing flavour. The four types of tea most commonly found on the market are black tea, oolong tea, green tea and white tea, all of which can be made from the same bushes, processed differently, and in the case of fine white tea grown differently. Pu-erh tea, a double-fermented black tea, is also often classified as amongst the most popular types of tea.

The term "herbal tea" usually refers to an infusion* of leaves, flowers, fruit, herbs or other plant material that contains no Camellia sinensis. The term "red tea" either refers to an infusion* made from the South African rooibos plant, also containing no Camellia sinensis, or, in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and other East Asian languages, refers to black tea.

(adapted from wikipedia)

*infusion - put in hot water