Tea and family/friends

My family has always drank tea, and I’ve always had a cup of pu-erh or gunpowder in the past, but lately I’ve been going a little crazy with tea. I was interested in purchasing some rooibos (yes, I know it’s not exactly tea) and I discovered Adagio. They made it too easy to purchase tea on their website, the promotions they had didn’t help either. Before I knew it, I became the black sheep in my family. Everyone’s scared of me now because I use them as guinea pigs for my tea. I keep getting comments from them going when did you start drinking tea? I mean I’ve always drank tea, but always the same tins in the cupboard. Is it wrong to try new things? Bleh, family still loves pu-erh better than everything I’ve given them.

Reviving an old thread.

I’m a black sheep in a family full of black sheep, though all for different reasons. though my being a black sheep would probably have more to do with my being Pagan and Gay then it would be to tea. My dad will drink tea and can occasionally be persuaded to try a loose leaf tea, if I drink the same thing and he doesn’t have to deal with a strainer/infuser. (He says to me that the stuff in it grosses him out alittle bit. shrugs) Same with my step mom. I have a feeling I might get my mom alittle more interested in loose leaf, hopefully. I plan on giving her a cup/infuser set for christmas with a canister of looseleaf tea or maybe 2-3. But before I do that, I need to visit her, and get her to try some samples and gauge her reaction. Most of my family so far seems to be more amused then anything about my tea interests, though my Dad is alittle bit worried about how much money I spend on it. (I do not buy much at all, and my tea drinking has dropped from almost everyday to every 2-4 days, though with colder weather coming up, I think I will be drinking it more again. Even though I prefer looseleaf, I’m going to continue to also use bagged teas on a regular basis, so that way I’m not drinking all my good stuff to soon. As I hate driving in the winter time, my inclination to go the tea stores will drop.

Total black sheep.Everyone that comes over is in shock and awe over my tea rack. They are all surprised to see more than a box of red rose. Then they all want to try some!

I’ve been the black sheep for a while, but things are turning around. While I’ve been introducing a few friends to tea slowly (I’ve now bullied three friend into getting jobs at various tea shop), I’ve also discovered that a number of my friends are closet tea drinkers. We’ve been having tea parties, and it’s kind of amazing.

My father drinks earl grey tea once in awhile only because Captain Picard drank it. My mom drinks tea daily but only those asian diet slimming type teas.

For my in laws, I haven’t seen my father in law drink tea, but my mother in law does. They claim she has “tons” of tea, which is around a stash of maybe a dozen teas – I don’t think they realize I have 11 times more tea!

I’m not sure if I’m the black sheep, but my collection has grown to huge proportions that I probably look pretty crazy.
Oh, and my husband HATES tea. The taste of it, defined as “tea” is awful to him. I’ve tried to trick him a couple times with white teas and really strong fruit teas but he can still taste “tea”.

My family has always been tea drinkers but always orange pekoe, sweetened on a cold day. However since I’ve become obsessed my Mom and Sister have both also gotten very into loose leaf tea. I actually just sent a care package including a Davids 24 days of tea calender and the Davids winter collection.

My grandmother and I had tea time every afternoon with dessert. My mom used to be really into coffee, but when I really started becoming obsessed with loose leaf tea she converted to tea also. My fiancee also is very into tea. Well, he enjoys drinking it and leaves all of the researching/learning about tea/purchasing to me. Which of course is just fine with me! I recently took loose leaf tea to our weekly coffee night during one of my classes. At first everyone thought I was insane. Then they tasted the tea and now 2 of the students are tea-curious newbies. Ahhhh, it’s so fun to convert people to the wonderful world of tea!

Honestly I’ve been somewhat of a black sheep. That was until I met my girlfriend Sita.

Sita is Indian, and, one of the first things she taught me was how to make chai. I suspect this was so I would be making it for her and not because I was a tea nut, but why split hairs :)
Other than having a lot of chai with her family (chai is really an Indian staple for just about every event) I have no friends who are tea nuts.

My family all drink tea, but there is no thought or passion that goes into it. And, honestly it’s okay. They gather with their tea (dad drinks black everyone else w/milk) and talk, entertain, or just warm themselves up with it. So in a way tea has always been a staple (be it a one brand tea bag kind of staple) in my life.

Honestly Steepster is my friend for all the tea nuts it has introduced me to. And, I hope to meet many of you in person and develop real tea friendships.

tea has always been on the table on both sides of my family, although it’s usually red rose/king cole (orange pekoe), boiling water, tea bag squeezed with a spoon. i’d still drink it that way if served it at family gatherings, but to be honest, my glass is usually filled with wine at such events.

at home, mom has always been fairly open minded when it came to eating and drinking, although we still drank either red rose or king cole simply because that’s what was available here. the flavoured stuff wasn’t very good.

she is actually the one who got me into loose leaf. we decided to try it because she thought it would be fun. it was a bit of work, and sometimes i didn’t really want to make a whole pot (never thought to put the strainer IN MY CUP), so it sort of slipped by the wayside.
until davidstea opened up in town recently. we tossed ALL of our old tea out (it was stale..) and now each have our own steepers and a drawer over flowing with tea. we’re discussing how to build the perfect shelf for my growing collection(/obsession).

i still drink my one cup of coffee in the morning, but mom has switched entirely to tea. the rest of the family seems amused by the take away cups i bring when i go straight from work to family gatherings. “now whatcha got in THERE. it’s WHAT kind of tea? uh-huh. want some wine?”