TEA FOR ME AND YOU

Perhaps you think of tea as a hot beverage sipped politely from delicate china cups, pinky finger extended. After all, the British tradition of “tea mania” has often included an accompaniment of crustless sandwiches, crumpets or other sweet treats.

Of course, the British weren’t the first to jump on board with this beverage. In Asian cultures, the history of tea dates back 5,000 years.

Used in Zen Buddhist rituals, folk healing, and even elevated to an art form (the tea ceremony), tea was felt to be so important, it was often reserved for wealthy nobles.

But what about iced tea? As the story goes, a tea plantation owner exhibiting his wares at the first U.S. World’s Fair in 1904 came up with the idea out of practicality, there was a heat wave and nobody was interested in drinking a hot beverage. To save his investment, he loaded ice into the brewed tea and offered fair-goers the first “iced tea”.

The truth is, drinking tea is about as red, white and blue as the American flag.

Surely you remember reading about the Boston Tea Party. Men of Boston threw hundreds of pounds of tea into the harbor to protest English taxation. This event helped spark the American Revolution.

So yes, real men (and real women) do drink tea all over the world.