Tea time!

Hello everyone! I know it's been a little longer than usual in my posting schedule, but that's just because I've been busy with classwork and papers. Fortunately I finished the one due tomorrow early this afternoon (Dan let us out of class early today!), so my evening is work-free!

I don't have too much to report in terms of goings on here, but a couple of things might interest you. On Tuesday afternoon our group was hosted by Mary Leadbetter (sp?), the daughter of Bill Friday (yes, as in the Friday Center at Chapel Hill) at one of two tea houses in Singapore. The shop owner or manager gave us a very, um, interesting breakdown of tea to enhance our "tea appreciation". According to him, there are only four types of pure tea in the world, and all of those originate from China over 4,000 years ago. There are no other proper teas. End of story. Japanese green tea, for example, is only imitation. The only pure types are green tea, white tea, yellow tea (the real name started with an 'o'), and black tea. We tasted/smelled all of them. Green tea and yellow tea are more traditional tastes, and I think black tea is more bitter. White tea had a good taste, too, though. He showed us a tea plant and where each type of tea came from. He wanted to "make us experts" at tea, so we could distinguish the good from the bad.

After his nice talk about the superiority of Chinese tea, we went into an adjacent room to try to make our own. The teapots are clay and are very tiny, smaller than the size of a typical mug, because they are intended for smaller groups of people. The cups themselves are practically thimbles, but I'm glad they weren't as large as American tea cups because the tea master informed us that one could get drunk.

Exactly how I love spending my days: drunk on pure Chinese tea. Needless to say, I did not get any tea highs, but perhaps that's because I only had four or five cups while eating food (which was delicious, by the way). Perhaps I will start drinking tea with my mother when I get home... perhaps. There's something about drinking a cold Pepsi or lemonade with a meal as opposed to hot tea, especially when it's 90 some degrees outside. Hot tea just doesn't cut it.

After that we made a trip to McDonald's (I know, I know...) for some ice cream. I've become a McFlurry enthusiast to say the least! It's so gooooood. In fact, it's about 7 pm now and some dinner and ice cream would be amazing.

Well, speaking of dinner, the rest of the group is ready to head out, so I need to go. I can update later...