What's the point of fruit tea?

You'll have to excuse me for being a bit down this evening, and that's partly why I'm mailing it in. Have done my best to not write too much about the football here over the last several weeks, and tonight I'll simply say that Spain was a far better team than anyone Germany had seen thus far in the tournament. The better team definitely won tonight, and I hope the Final is as exciting as this Semi-final was.

You're going to have to excuse this blogpost tonight. I just don't have it in me to be inventive or entertaining after the emotions that've been spilled on my floor while watching that match.

My mother's been in Germany for a week, and spent the last few days in Oberammergau where she saw the Passion Play (Yes, the one that's caused so much controversy about Anti-Semitism over the years). She returned to Munich today with some fruit tea from Upper Bavaria. I was happy to prepare it for her, but had no intention of drinking the stuff.

I did look at the *tea* though. Poured it out on the counter and looked at the leaves, even though they're not really leaves per se. I've dealt with the what is/isn't tea on this blog before. I know fruit tea isn't considered real tea by purists, but I use the term infusion when I talk about multiple steepings. Even though I prefer tea from the Camellia sinensis plant, I don't have any qualms about calling other things tea. Within reason. I'm not going to go into what I don't consider tea. Just thinking about that topic makes me sleepier than I already was.

Here's my thing about fruit tea, though. The un-steeped tea looked delicious...really fresh, delicious fruit. But then I steeped it, served it to my mom, and had a cup so I could tell you about it. No matter how good the quality of the dried Hibiscus leaves, various dried berries and unspecified aroma were, the fruit tea really didn't taste any different from the most generic supermarket bagged tea. There was just no noticeable difference.

The more delicate my taste gets, the more excited I get when I can try something new and compare it. This was not worth the anticipation. Fruit tea. What the hell's the point?

Tomorrow, we're off to Vienna. You might only think of coffee when thinking of Vienna, but I assure you that there's a tea drinking culture there. I intend to write plenty about it the next several days. Something to look forward to, eh? Hope you stick around.