‌☕‌ 🍵‌ International Tea Day 🍵‌ ‌☕‌

[RafaC]

Hi everyone!

Tomorrow is the International Tea Day and as the tea-lover that I am, I thought it'd be nice to start a topic about it on the community 🍃

Despite tea being the most consumed drink in the world (after water), it's not huge where I grew up (Sao Paulo, Brazil) as, most of you may know, Brazil is quite famous for its excellent coffee. But I'm not a coffee-drinker and I consider myself to be lucky to have a tea-loving mum.

I grew up drinking a lot of tea (well, actually most of it was infusions: spearmint, lemongrass and above it all, mate tea). No, mate tea is not tea for your mates, but tea made with erva mate (or, in Spanish, yerba mate). Calling it "tea" may be technically wrong as it's not made out of Camelia Sinensis - the tea plant - but we call it tea down there anyway. Mate tea is hugely popular in South America but it's consumed in different forms throughout the continent: in Argentina and Uruguay, it's consumed as chimarrão, hot and served with a metal straw in a container usually made from a calabash gourd and that same way of drinking it applies to the extreme South of Brazil. 

In Sao Paulo, you can enjoy it hot or cold, with or without milk, served in regular cups and in Rio de Janeiro, they only have it when served cold, most of the times with lemon juice mixed to it on a regular glass.  I'm actually drinking some mate tea that my partner brought from Brazil whilst I'm writing this piece 😄

I honestly like all the ways of drinking it, and as a tea-lover I like most types of tea and infusions. I'm crazy about Chinese and Japanese green and white teas, but I'm also a huge fan of the blends of black tea made here in the UK. The one that I drink the most has to be Yorkshire Tea. Love some of the classic blends from Whittard as well. 

The International Tea Day also exists to raise awareness of everything that revolves around a simple cup of tea: from its social and environment impact to its cultural and historical importance. 

By the way, did you know that you can grab a free tea from Greggs with Priority? (It can be coffee though, but if you're like me you'd go for the tea)

What's your favourite tea? Is it the one you drink the most or do you save it for special occasions? I also have to ask the dreaded question: milk before or after? Please share your tea thoughts on the comment section below whilst sipping your favourite cuppa.

[Chris_K]

---

@Cleoriff wrote:

If that's tea, it's just the colour I like. I use 2 tea bags to get it that colour though. 😂

Your tea and coffee mix sounds absolutely disgusting 😬

---

Yeah that was tea - bit of a builders tea, just left the bag brewing in it for 4-5min. That's also the malty biscuit tea, which I think is a little darker than a normal brew anyway.

---

@pgn wrote:

Love the blue vibe too, @Chris_K, very "O2" 👍😆

---

I'm definitely a blue colour kinda guy, and as you can see my desk has RGB everywhere... Pretty much every peripheral (including speakers and monitor) is a Razer Chroma RGB product 😍 #NotAnAd #DidntGetPaid

[Anonymous]

Hi @Chris_K , I was the one who first posed the question what tea the team at 02 like to drink. Really interesting to read there preferences! So long as their tea and biscuits are keeping them happy, we can't complain!

Your teabag in coffee invention sounds disgusting! Just stirring a mug of tea with a spoon that has been previously stirred in a coffee mug is bad enough!

My late father used to make me a mug of tea before we went to bed when I was young, and he had coffee. We both liked sugar,and to save time he used to stir the same coffee spoon in my tea, to save on washing up extra spoons later. It tasted horrible and I just couldn't drink it. I stirred my own mug after that!

A few years ago I worked in an office for a brief period, and had to buy some teabags at the local shop as the office had ran out. I was given some money and asked to get whatever was there. I bought a box of 'Tetley One Cup'. The Administrator at the office had to look twice at the name on the box when I came back with it! It was a bit of a joke in the office  after that, as it looked like you only got one cup from it, just the 'one cup?'- and there was a lot of staff!

😄