Words are inadequate

Ask in comments and I'll give you five words I associate with you, for you to expound upon as you see fit. These are from darkfyre_muse.

Tea flows dark and full over the tongue, more subtle than coffee and more intricate than Coke. The ritual of Morning Tea is a sign that all is right with the world.

Leonard Cohen has a voice that goes right through you and a way with words that make you laugh and cry and twist up inside. Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack, a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in

Cosmic Encounter was, I think, the first 'real' boardgame I owned. It got an awful lot of play while I lived in Apartment Six. Sometimes I think I ought to play it more often these days.

Quotes get used because someone else has already said whatever it is I want to say, better. At least I think they have. Often that's because I don't trust how I'd say it. Which leads us into. . .

Writer is consistently the first word that comes to mind when I describe myself. One of my biggest fears is that it's not accurate. Time to do something about that.

merseine0613 asks:
So what, besides Bigelow, is drinkable in your estimation? And what is "good" tea?

Oh dear. Where to start.

I drink non-flavored black tea almost exclusively. I'll have green or oolong if I'm at an oriental restaurant where they're serving it with the meal, but I rarely make a cup or pot for myself.

I want strong tea. Flavorful tea. Tea that I can taste.

WARNING: DO NOT OVERSTEEP THE TEA. This will force me to come to your house and flay you with a mesh tea ball. Also it makes the tea undrinkably bitter. Boiling water, three minutes. Maybe less; the Assam Golden Rain that Teavana sells is done after 2'30", for instance.

So, with that out of the way:

Good tea is single-estate loose tea. (To be fair, I've not tried many blended loose teas. I suppose some of those might be good as well.) If you want to get specific, my current preference is for a northeastern Indian variety called Sikkim or Temi. I'm also partial to Assam or Keemun, and not such a fan of Ceylon or Darjeeling. I think I've tried and been unimpressed by one or two other Chinese varieties as well.

(Lapsang souchong is not tea. It is essence of smoked bacon dipped in hot water and served to unsuspecting gweilo.)

However, I accept that most normal people don't have loose tea, or good teapots. And when I travel, it's far more convenient to just have the individual bags. So, I'm more or less resigned to drinking bag tea when not at home.

Stash is pretty good, as is Tazo. Bigelow will do in a pinch. Lipton is surprisingly decent; I'm never sure if that's because it really is okay or if I'm just constantly expecting it to be awful and impressed when it turns out to be drinkable.

I don't like Twinings at all. Not the stuff they sell in the US, anyway. I'm told their UK tea is better. I would hope so.

At the bottom of the barrel we have Tetley. This is a tea that advertises itself as "the tiny little tea leaf tea." Tea is graded for quality based solely on the size of the leaves: larger leaves, higher grade. What Tetley is saying is, in essence, "Our tea sucks! Drink it!" I cannot argue with the first part of this, and try very hard to avoid complying with the second.

And now you know more about my tea preferences than you ever wanted to.

Waking up at five in the morning and not being able to get back to sleep: bad.

Having a real cup of tea at 6:15 after giving up on sleeping: very good.

Using the extra forty-five minutes to get some writing done: pretty decent.

Coming to work and being unpleasantly confronted with how awful the tea here actually is: extraordinarily bad.

I mean, seriously. I'm brewing a large mug of tea with a single teabag and using water that's not quite boiling. (I do microwave it after running it into the cup, but that doesn't help enough.) I knew that it wasn't very good tea to start with. But compared with the strong cup of keemun hao-ya a I made this morning . . .

LUCY: This is awful! It tastes like you put a brown crayon in some hot water!
LINUS: You're right. I'm sorry. I'll go add another crayon.

Last Christmas narquelion kindly gave me a number of pouches of loose tea, and several fill-it-yourself teabags. I never used either of these things; my attic apartment felt incredibly Not Right for tea of that quality.

This evening I opened the bag of Keemun Hao-Ya A and made myself two cups' worth.

The tea does indeed have a slightly reddish tint, and a most enticing aroma.

I sipped it a bit hesitantly at first. I wasn't quite sure I'd actually gotten any tea, so I sipped again.

"Oh my."

I have an excellent book and an amazing cup of tea. This, I suspect, will be a good night.

narquelion, I thank you, my taste buds thank you, and the restored calm in my soul thanks you.