Saturday, 28 June 2014

Tea in Starbucks Land


I wasn't sure about how I would go getting black tea when I came over. It is certainly a different supply scenario, but I have found enough teabags for my needs, including Twinings, and Liptons.
Most of my friends drink coffee - drip black coffee, or some sort of coffee concoction in a large (I'd say about 700mL) drinking container. Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks seem to be the most popular takeaway brands. Everybody seems to have a drip coffee machine for their bench, Keurig being the main 'best' brand.
Tea drinkers seem to be divided into two groups - Earl Grey drinkers, and herbal tea drinkers, usually for health benefits (pregnant, allergic to caffeine etc). There is a huge variety of herbal teas, way more than just chamomile and peppermint at home. There are even seasonal herbal teas. Most of the tea section (see photo above) in the supermarket is taken with herbal teas.
Earl Grey drinkers are people who hate Liptons, but enjoy 'good strong' black tea. I have seen someone put sugar in Earl Grey.
There are local black tea brands, one particularly good one is Harney and Son's. Price of good local black tea, especially leaf tea at specialty tea stores, tends to be in the 'luxury' range. I tend to oscillate between Liptons (cheap) and Twinings English Breakfast (reminds me of mothers group at home).
People don't put milk in hot drinks, they put creamer - I think it is meant to be a nice rich dairy product that you can put into your coffee, and offered for tea too. This has been extended to creamer with vanilla flavour, for that something extra (often sweet!!), long life creamer, and the powdered creamer that doesn't contain dairy at all ('nuff said). I have paid money for cups of tea that were undrinkable, probably because I added the powdered creamer!
Everything in supermarkets is generally in teabags, although I have located one store that sells Twinings in leaf.

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