Life’s like a cup of tea, you never know what you’re going to get…

The one big issue tea-drinkers face regularly is value for money. Upon meeting your boyfriend’s family for the the first time, a regular person would probably think “wow what a nice/shoddy family, I hope they like me/leave soon/have lots of money that will shortly pass to their son.” Or something of that ilk. For me, a dedicated tea-drinker, I thought none of this when I first met R’s mother and sister late one night in the lounge of the old Regency hotel in Melbourne. My first thought was: “Are they aware that they just paid $9 for two teabags and some hot water?”

Order ‘a tea’ in the city of Melbourne and what you receive will range from a teabag in a small cup of water (Marios, circa 2002. I can’t comment on their current tea practice; I never ordered another cup) to a Rococo-style platter furnished with teapot, loose leaf leaves, a side jug of milk (optional) and cup and saucer and spoon purchased from the estate of Louis XIV (Madame Sousous. And yes, I do venture beyond Brunswick Street for tea… sometimes).

As a rule, it will take a lot for me to pay good sort-of-hard-earned money for teabag-tea. It just seems more sensible to go home and make it myself, and have the added luxury of wearing ugboots while I drink it.

As mentioned in an earlier post, tea is about the experience, not just the taste. Yes, you must have good-quality tea (Rule #2 – try not to have tea from an city laneway joint that serves mysterious looking ‘chicken steak’ meals…), yes you must brew it properly, but you must also be able to take the time to savour the experience of doing bugger all for half an hour.

Also, I suspect that life is not like a box of chocolates; I saw a box of Cadbury Milk Tray chocolates at work last week and they give their consumers a very clear idea of what assortment is contained within.