Tea Time

I like to think that it was at an early age that I became interested in Tea. However, the earliest time I can remember going out of my way to make a cup for myself was probably my junior year of high school. This corresponds to me being about 16 years old but I do rather vividly remember drinking only tea when I was a camp counselor for CYO's Camp Don Bosco, which would place it at about age 15 and that's not particularly young to be doing anything except for, perhaps, driving. A habitual morning tea would have started sometime around then and corresponded with the availability of travel mugs since, at least at my high school, there was not any real way to keep a beverage warm without one. I started with a liking for Earl Grey and slowly widened my horizons. Entering my freshman year of College I became much more infatuated with loose leaf teas, an interest that my father first had. I ate a couple of local Tea Rooms and began exploring the availability of loose leaf tea shops. Since then I have enjoyed picking up different loose leaf varieties where ever I go, most recently at the Phoenix Farmers Market . The only bad experiences I have really ever had with tea were in England where the water can really make a good tea go bad.