Tea>Wine

Drinking tea has been way more of an enriching experience than drinking wine. Both wine drinking and tea drinking employ all senses. Yet, tea drinking always employs all senses, while wine does not. There is no way to drink tea swiftly. There is no way to drink tea, and even for five minutes, not be taken away.

What I like most about tea drinking, is exercising my adjectives when describing the experience. Today, I had a summer tea that infused mangoes, kiwi, apples and oranges into a dense black tea. The flavors were very intense, tasting bittingly sweet upon first touching my mouth, and then filling my mouth with citrus flavors during the swallow. I tasted an African red tea today, which featured red currants, pineapples, almonds, among other flavors. It actually took me some time to generate the words to describe the taste. The cinnamon filled your mouth with smell. The almond was an undertone, that I had to concentrate in order to briefly taste.

Tea is aromatic. The smell reminded my friend of Christmas. The smell is another sensation seperate from the tasting sensation. It is not necesarily a precursor to what the taste is going to be. I had Earl Grey tea this morning, just to see what all the fuss was about. The smell was very adult. Have you ever smelled a cologne that denotes maturity? That is the taste that Earl Grey tea denotes. It is the Chanel No. 5 of teas. The flavor causes you to slow down and taste. And hold and savor. Your nose will experience something different from your mouth simultaneously.

As you can see, I am loving tea. It is an experience unlike wine. As tea is heated, and then cools, the taste matures, becomes more intense with every sip. It slows you down, stops your tracks. The place where I get tea, the Zen-Cha Tea Salon, sells more than 100 different types of tea. I'll be attempting to appreciate as many as I can.