Tea on a hot tin roof

For me, tea is no longer just a warm comforting drink. It has become an all encompassing religion. There is something about that quiet vigil of tea as you feel it slide down your throat and fill up your senses...not quite like a night in the forest, more like a night wrapped in a quilt sitting in front of a warm fire with rain on the tin roof and wind whipping around the outside of your house (I have thought about this a LOT!)
Tea seems to have gained popularity of late and everywhere I turn I hear someone telling me how much they love tea, which I get really excited about, how wonderful! A fellow tea drinker, let us enjoy the magical brew together only to find they drink chai latte, call it tea and consider an english breakfast tea bag the height of 'mixing things' up tea wise. Now it's not that I am particularly against tea bags, in fact Madura tea does some damn fine teas, but as a connoisseur of tea, the brewing process is half the joy. The smell of the tea leaves as the hot water hits them is completely irresistible and if I could bottle it I maintain, I would make a fortune.
Tea is the one constant that I can remember throughout my life. In fact I can remember begging my mother to let me drink tea when I was four and her saying "no" which I am sure must have led to some fantastic gesture of defiance such as running around the table in circles screaming "TEA! TEA! TEA!" which I was very good at indeed and often ended up so tired that I just fell asleep from the exhaustion of it all.
I don't just remember good tea moments (of which I have many) but I also remember the bad tea moments of which, unfortunately taunt my memory like the little bully in the playground who has chocolate all around his face who has been told he is cute so many times he has become a right pain in the rear end. I'm talking the moments at truly terrible theatre shows where you think "I am actually going to poke my eyes out with chopsticks if I have to sit through the second act of this" so you make your way to the little tea and coffee booth (because you've gone to the matinee of this dreaded performance in order to bypass the loss of a perfectly good evening for faff and therefore the option of anything harder is not an option at all) and decide to commiserate the loss of those hours which you will never have returned by a lovely warm cup of tea. So you pay your $3.50 (extortionate prices paid to maternally older women who also convince you you need to buy an anzac cookie that is made just like they did back in the war - hard as nails and dual use as coaster provided.) and for your pain you get a polystyrene cup of warm milky water in which a dodgy tea bag has once been dipped in and pulled out again just long enough to colour the water. It is the most displeasing experience and one that sticks with you and make you concerned everytime you order a cup of tea.

I know I sound like a tea snob, and this is largely because I am but there are somethings that should remain sacred and tea is just one of those things for me. This warm drink has so many traditions and stories around it's hard not to want to seep yourself in it all and just relax.....

so now I'm going to go and boil the kettle because I have a weird craving for tea...