You look at it with anticipation.
Bursting with antioxidants. Promises of weight-loss. Youth. Longevity. Good health all packaged in a cute box sitting on your kitchen bench.
You're a little dubious.
That formidable bitter green tea seaweed flavour is still burned into your palate. Will this fancy green tea turn out better than your last purchase? Or will it disappear to the back of your cupboard with your old dried mung beans and tapioca flour?
You've always been right about green tea. The stuff is horrible. Everyone who thinks otherwise is wrong. Another wasted purchase wrapped with good intentions.
That formidable bitter green tea seaweed flavour is still burned into your palate. Will this fancy green tea turn out better than your last purchase? Or will it disappear to the back of your cupboard with your old dried mung beans and tapioca flour?
Another wasted purchase wrapped with good intentions.
But what if you're wrong? You could have angels dancing on your taste buds.
Say what?
Angels. Dancing. On. Your. Taste. Buds.
Beautiful, fresh, divine.
There's good news, my friend.
There are just two hurdles that stand between you and dancing with angels.
First, the most obvious. Some green tea actually is bad.
Old leaves. Grown at sea level. Harvested and blitzed to smithereens with little consideration of anything good in this life. Stored for months or years before it's actually brewed. No love. No joy.
Good green tea (a.k.a. angels dancing on your taste buds) is made from fresh young tea leaves and barely opened baby tea buds. These leaves are found far above sea level. Picked by the gentle, gracious hands of tea maidens. Ceremoniously processed by the wise, ancient Obi-Wan Kenobis of the neverlands of Tea Sanctorum. Packaged and sent to the divine place of Tielka in Agnes Water, Queensland, Australia then shared amongst the most discerning of tea-loving palates (that's you).
Second, not so obvious, but some of you already know it.
Boiling water destroys green tea. Nothing but devastation and bitter heartache remain in your cup. Your delicate green leaves are burnt to a crisp and now you pay the price.
Like sugar is bad for your teeth, and a wet floor is bad for your socks, boiling water and green tea should never co-exist.
Green tea, like a small child, flourishes in the most perfect of surroundings. And the perfect surrounding for green tea is freshly heated water at 70°C/158°F degrees. Humanity can only define the perfect surroundings for a small child with one word - love.
Your fandangle temperature-controlled teapot can manage heating water at a specified temperature. Love for a small child is a little more complex and you can't buy it from a shop.
If your teapot has only one setting of "raging boil", simply fill your cup or teapot one quarter full with cold water, fill the rest with boiling water, then add your green tea leaves. Allow to brew for a few minutes. While waiting, find a small child to cuddle.
Angels will be released as your green tea is brewed to perfection.
Indulge in life.