On my dining room table (or on my kitchen cart) sits a basket of tea. This is mypublic basket of teas. The regular grocery store varieties. Stash and Twining’s in green tea with jasmine or green chai or chai spice which is a black tea as well as lemon ginger, which I don’t really care for and PG Tips. I just bought two boxes of Ginger Breakfast Black tea and one Honeybush, Mandarin and Orange and I’m gradually acquiring matching metal tins for three or four special loose teas.

The private basket in my office holds all of my loose teas, some of which I chose from a local place, the rest sent by my friend to try different kinds: Lady Londonderry, Moroccan Mint, and Mexican Chocolate. I had planned to do a tea tasting on my blog but never started the project.

Now might be a good time.

I do go through a space where I drink one kind for a long time and then switch over to another. I went through a Star Trek phase and only drank Earl Grey, hot.

On the morning that I began the first draft or snippet of this, I had the ginger black for the first time in more than a year. I was very lucky to have found it in the grocery store. Up until now, I’ve always had to order from a catalog.

The green tea with jasmine is the one I tried during Lent when I gave up soda. I was told that the green would counter the negative effects of the diet soda. I don’t know if it did, but I have been good and limited my soda intake to two cans a day on most days, and none for breakfast anymore.

I have green and black Moroccan Mint and I prefer the black tea. I prefer black teas in general.

I enjoy British tea, especially PG Tips. This is perfect with milk and a tiny bit of sugar. And it’s always wonderful. It also reminds me of Ed whose quintessential Britishness can be defined by his tea-brewing.

I also enjoy the Chinese tea that I found at my local store: Pai Mu Tan and Wu Yi Oolong. I believe those are their names. It tastes exactly like the end of the Chinese dinners I had in the restaurant when I was a kid growing up in New York.

Tea is that comfortable friend who sits in your lap and holds your hand. Tea turns the pages of the book and reminds you to use a bookmarks. Tea makes all things better. Tea understands. Tea comforts and reminds and is thoughtful.