The British around that time already had an affection for putting sugar on everything. Tea made it so, so much easier.
As a side note, I could note “Tea” and its mild linguistic variants like “chi” is one of the few words that are effectively universal, known in almost every language, like “mama,” “taxi” and “OK.” There aren’t many of those. “Coffee” is pretty universal too.
thx, those are the kinds of tangents/nuggets that make me come back the SD
Tea is ancient.
In legend, tea was discovered around 2700 BCE. Archaeology attests that tea was in popular use by the 2nd century BCE.
Coffee is much less ancient.
The first known legends of coffee use are from the 9th century CE and historical record of coffee consumption are only as far back as the 15th century.
Tea had a huge head start (literally more than a millennium) and was propagated to a huge proportion of the world on the substantial impact of Chinese cultural influence.
tea in the wider sense of the word (infusion) - as in pouring hot water over leaves - is probably as old as the dominio of fire …
Plug for cold brew barley tea, my uncaffeinated drink of choice. Steep in the refrigerator for 2 hours, one tea bag per liter or thereabouts. Wildly popular in Japan and South Korea. Also can be made hot. Contains no hibiscus, unlike 90% of typical US herbal tea concoctions. (I don’t mind that, but I’m on a barley tea kick.) Barley tea - Wikipedia
I’ve heard that all my life, but although I drink black coffee by the buckets with no ill effects, tea gives me a really sour stomach. Maybe it’s the tannins?
To that - how many people drink rooibos?
I have a couple of boxes of it. Recommended. Thing is I also have like a dozen or more other boxes of tea of various sorts. I drink more herbal tea when the weather gets colder.
I like rooibos. I discovered it when i visited South Africa. When i got home, i tried to buy some, but none was as good as what i remembered getting there. I ended up buying several, and doing a taste test, and I’ve since bought Rishi, which i like, but don’t love.
The non-tea-teas i drink most often are ginger (with a touch of lemon grass) and “breathe easy”, a eucalyptus/mint thing sold as a cold treatment.
Do you have any advice about how to brew it, or good brands that are available in the US?
The water has to be just off the boil (so, around 95°-97°C), and steep for at least 5 minutes (rooibos doesn’t go bitter with a long steep, unlike tea) That’s about it.
As for brands, I generally get it in bulk from regional sources so don’t know what’s good in brands, but you won’t go wrong with Freshpak or Peacock brands if you can find those.
Thanks!
eta: if anyone else is interested, freshpak rooibos is easy to find on Amazon and other US-oriented sites. I was able to find the Peacock website, but it wasn’t obvious if they ship internationally, and all the prices were in Rands.
I don’t know. Tea might upset a stomach if it’s brewed too strong. Most of the people I know have no problem with coffee. I love the effect it has, especially that first cup in the morning (two per day was my habit), but it gave me excess acid for decades before I finally gave it up.
Indeed. I have had “chifir”/“zavarka”/whatever you call it and it is an… acquired taste.
My wife tried rooibos but found that she didn’t like it. Herbal teas of all kinds do little for her. She’s found a local tea store and buys dozens of types at a time, oolong and green and white and yellow. Not black, the usual commercial tea, which is too astringent.
She suggests that if people like white tea they also try yellow.
You might be interested in the story of Queen Catherine and tea The true story behind England’s tea obsession - BBC Travel
I think the Tick Tock brand of rooibos tea is the best for flavour by a long way.
Cool article.
Not a local brand, though, so I didn’t mention them.
They’re the now-British descendants of the original rooibos popularizer, Benjamin Ginsberg.
If you want the original original, that would be the South African Eleven O’Clock brand, even though it’s no longer owned by the same family and isn’t my favourite commercial brand.
I find it one of the best drinks for quenching your thirst. I didn’t like it on first taste, but I soon found I really liked it and craved it at times.
Thanks for the link!