The last few weeks I've been serving one of my clients tea. I'd prepared both tea and coffee the first time we met, and although he opted for tea, he did admit later that he wasn't normally a tea drinker.
Was it my above-average tea or was he being polite? He matched me cup for cup, and I'm no slouch when it comes to volume of tea drunk. I kept pouring one for him and one for me. He thanked me politely, and drank every cup dry. Why did this please me so immensely?
I don't have any illusions that I've indoctrinated him to the leaf side. He drank it happily enough, but I got the feeling that he was simply well-mannered. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
The other funny thing was that I found myself serving him my very best tea. Alternating between light floral Darjeelings and vegetal Oolongs, I worked my way through the many teas that I've written about here.
Was a joy. I did have a bit of a quandary that first day. Because he and I had opted for tea, I had no idea what to do with the pot of coffee I'd made. Luckily I could turn to twitter where quite a few ridiculous coffee disposal options were presented. Thanks for that.
So, do you serve tea to guests? Do you offer an alternative? Do you proselytise? I didn't in the past, but I'm wondering if I might start.
I sometimes serve tea to guests. The tea ranges from sweet chrysanthemum herbal drink, regular tea to very high end tea, depending on what I guess they my like. I always offer coffee as an alternative. But I only make very dark coffee :-p Once a few young friends visited me. They didn't drink tea or coffee. Then I realized the only alternatives ever available in our home were water, milk or liquor :-p
ReplyDeleteAs I am a good guest (or so I think ;)) I offer people tea, herbal tea, coffee, hot chocolate, whatever they might like.
ReplyDeleteI often offer tea to my guests. More people are interested in it than not...especially since I tend to have a lot of unusual teas around that people haven't tried. Often, people who aren't serious tea drinkers make remarks that they are surprised at how good the tea tastes, and how different it is from anything they've ever had before!
ReplyDeleteI think most people who don't drink high-quality loose tea simply don't know what it's about, and would find something they really liked if they tried enough of it!