7 thoughts on “Spreadin’ Love 503”

  1. What a dumb bit of writing. The advice on tea might be good (the water should be close to boiling when it meets the tea bag, and certainly not cooled off a fair amount) but the dumb bits about “the holidays” and “capitalism” and the “tampon” line were all obnoxious and dumb. I guess Hitchens is sick, so maybe we should blame this stupidity on that, but he’s been writing such garbage for long enough that we can’t really make such excuses. Let’s hope he at least was able to pay some bills with that tripe.

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  2. Although Hitchens is correct on the horrors of US restaurant tea, he’s totally wrong about what you get at coffee places. There, generally, you get a scaldingly hot, enormous cup of tea that can’t be touched for the next 10 minutes, which is why I avoid the stuff.
    Some day, I will own a nice electric samovar and make zavarka (tea concentrate) with loose leaves in a teapot and top it off with hot water at will. I’d like this one to have around for company:
    http://sadaf.com/store/product714.html

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  3. Yes, someone who understands that tea making is a bit of an art. I use loose tea from the Indian grocery and always pour the hot water into the pot. Husband comes from a coffee drinking family whose idea of tea is two tea bags in a quart of water, boiled to death, then re-heated as necessary!
    Any wonder why I carry my own tea everywhere I go and never order tea in a restaurant?
    And I’ve been in restaurants where they will “freshen up” your tea by adding more hot water!!
    It’s not coffee folks!!!

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  4. Green teas (and white) should be brewed at below boiling, or else they go bitter. Or if you like them bitter, go right ahead! But since supermarkets carry more green tea with flavorings than plain, I’m thinking most people don’t. Oolongs also go less bitter at a bit below 212. Very anglophile, that article (which I can understand but come on, that’s not the only way to drink tea).
    Not sure about herbals–might depend on the type, how heat affects the release of flavor.

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  5. “When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject’s taste buds, a spectroscopic examination of the subject’s metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject’s brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariably delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.”

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  6. Ah, I love it that someone can out-nerd a nerdy article on tea (yes, I mean you, lmc). I’m always fascinated by passionate interests (even when people call them obsessive), so I liked both Hitchen’s article and lmc’s corrections.
    One would expect, no, that green and black teas and tisanes might have different optimal temperatures for brewing?

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  7. I’m pleased to have been of some amusement, bj. *bows*
    And damn it, I don’t even like most tisanes, and now I want to go run some experiments.

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