#also genuinely: slightly burned and oversteeped green tea still tastes just fine

[riverofrainbows]

Because of a fanfiction, i have been trying some new teas (not been much of a tea trinker before tbh), and it turns out to be exceedingly difficult to find a tea made of just one ingredient. Especially fruit or flower teas. It also turns out that 80-90% of all fruit and flower tea mixes are based on Hagebutte, regardless of what the package claims to be the main ingredient. I do not like Hagebutte and am specifically here to taste the other ingredients, those that are on the name of the tea. This is a problem. I now have personal beef with whoever is so madly in love with fucking Hagebutte of all things that they set the industry standard of putting it in everything. If that person exists. Otherwise i have personal beef with the personification of that fact, and i will fight them.

I was able to find an assortment of black teas, from a british brand even (yes the fanfiction was set in britain), that was apparently packaged in poland from importet tea, but i suppose the british people also drink polish tea then so it still counts. I was also, through some miracle and thanks to the plant biology course in uni, able to connect "Malve" with hibiscus, because they had little pictures of the flower on it (one of the only uni courses i actually enjoyed), and thus able to source a solely hibiscus hibiscus tea (no Hagebutte), so that has been a success.

I have not been able to find any jasmin tea, nor cherry that doesn't have not only goddamnmotherfucking Hagebutte but also about 5 other ingredients so the cherry component of the taste is negligible, so i will need to find some other source for them (i will try a big department store, this was a supermarket).

I have also, by staring at the tea shelf for too long, formed the theory that british people aren't unique, people in general are just weird about caffeinated beverages. Sometimes it's quite benign or actually has reasons (like green tea leaves burning at too high temperatures), but i promise it's possible to drink coffee that wasn't prepared with the whole thing with grinding the beans yourself and doing the thing with the little broom and doesn't have a "perfect crema". I also promise that it's not a crime to drink black tea that's been differently prepared with regards to sugar or milk. Even oversteeped green tea is still perfectly ok.

I don't mean cultural traditions or personal tastes or people who do this as a hobby, i mean how (some a lot of) people insist that you need the best quality and the best quality preparation for it to taste good, and that everyone else is low-key uncultured.

I promise that a not supremely optimally prepared caffeinated beverage is not impeded in it's main function.