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“I’ll have a white hot chocolate with a chai tea bag, please.”

Rhea Maverick
Jun 19, 2016
3 min read

Hi, my name is Rhea Maverick and I am a tea fanaTEAc,,,

My obsession with tea began early 2015. Well, to be honest I’ve always fancied tea; I just couldn’t handle it without some kind of sugar.

I have pleasant memories from the early days where grandma buys me these amazing graham crackers from the farmer's market. These “biscuits” were amazing by themselves, but they were even more amazing when she would put them in a mug and doused them in tea. Gosh I wish I knew what kind of tea she used so I can omit this nostalgia.

Fast-forward later to 2013 when I first get exposed to different flavours of tea. Before then I thought there was simply one kind of tea called "tea". The first "different" tea I tried was chai tea with milk, which I was given by my boyfriend's aunt. Later a friend introduced me to various tea companies such as David’s tea, Teaopia, etc. and she showed me her moms drawer that was full of various herbal and non-herbal teas - some of which I tasted. But none of these early experiences with tea motivated me to purchase tea for myself.

Before 2015 I never really acquired the taste for tea, I just drank it because I had to. I have a huge sweet tooth, and sugar or honey is a must for me to sweeten drinks such as coffee, lemonade, and tea. Mind you before university I used to order my coffees with 5 cream and 5 sugar. But then came those mornings where I forgot to buy milk and had to substitute milk with tea for my daily milk with Nesquik and bread with butter and jam. Then came the biannual sick week during the school year where I had to drown myself in honey lemon tea, with LOTS of honey, to alleviate my sore neck.

It really wasn’t until I started experimenting with various methods of improving my skin without using skin care products – this meant exercising and breaking a sweat, eating healthier, drinking less to no pop, and ingesting as little dairy as possible. I didn’t want to cut out all dairy products in my life since ice cream is one of my favourite desserts and I tend to have days where all I want to eat is cheese. I wouldn’t want to make my body lactose intolerant – I’ve personally seen what it does to a friend.

Thus the easiest step in improving my skin was replacing my breakfast milk with tea. I have to be honest it was horrible at first. I’d put at least 2 tablespoons of honey in the tea and then I’d also have honey on my bread. But slowly and surely I no longer needed to sweeten my tea and I was able to eat for breakfast tea (no sugar) and bread with butter and honey. The next thing I knew I was drinking tea during the day and at night – purely for pleasure. I was even replacing coffee with caffeinated tea (although they still both make my teeth yellow). The best thing I've done for myself is drinking tea throughout my meals instead of ice cold water. This warms up the stomach and improves digestion, and gives plain old water a great flavour of your choice.

I am currently obsessed with going in the tea shops and smelling all of their new teas; whether they are herbal, caffeinated, or decaffeinated. I even visit the tea section at Winners and Marshalls to smell oriental teas that are in stock. I try to stop myself from overfilling my cabinets with tea because I’ll have so many I won’t even know what kind of tea I have, but sweet nelly there are just so many flavours still to try!

My current favourite tea is a white tea with fennel and peppermint. I’m obsessed with the peppermint flavour even though I hate minty drinks/desserts. Chai tea comes in close second simply because I can mix it with milk, white hot chocolate, and any kind of vanilla drink to make it UH-mazing.

I'm not writing this to persuade individuals out there to drink tea - I'm just describing my story of how I came to enjoy tea. So with that being said, does anyone have any recommendations of what tea I should try next?