After an afternoon spent admiring decapitated statues and Zulu headrests (keep your hair styled! keep the bugs out! keep in touch with dead relatives!) at the British Museum, Luke and I went to the Twinings Tea Shop.
The British Museum
I should mention now that Luke’s passion for tea far exceeds that of a normal man. Luke’s tea-drive rivals a panda’s appetite for bamboo. He’s a pack-a-day addict with a penchant for the green stuff, a chamomile fiend, a chai guy, the Earliest of Greys.
I lost him before we even entered the building, his eyes glazing over with the ecstasy one finds in the eyes of the habitual opium smoker or Balinese trance dancer. Less like a kid on Christmas, more like an atheist to whom God has been revealed. I left Luke drooling at the front of the shop, the Londoners who entered the store giving him a perplexed look and a wide berth.
At the back, I found what I was looking for – the tasting bar. Two lovely young ladies sampled me on many a brew of that remarkable plant, Camellia sinensis. I learned a great deal under their tutelage, and will share one of those lessons, dear reader, with you:
White tea, not green, is the most healthful of the bunch. Unlike its verdant cousin, white tea is neither fried, nor steamed, nor subjected to aggressive marketing campaigns. With its elegant flavors of honey and toasted vanilla, white tea is my new favorite herbal concoction. I commend it to you wholeheartedly, and if you need a second opinion, just ask Luke. Having spent his life savings in the time it took me to try two or three varieties, he joined us at the bar for a cup of Ceylon Silver Tips.
He took a seat, took a sip, and turned to me: “This is the happiest day of my life.”
Luke likes tea
Leave a Reply