Fun Friday: Tea Secrets

A part of my tea collection, the infamous tea drawer.

For this particular Friday, I’m covering not just one secret, but two secrets involving tea. I hope you enjoy them. But let’s start with my tea obsession.

First off, I have been drinking iced tea since I was a kid. I preferred it to soft drinks and other sweetened things that kids pour down their gullets, and at some point (probably late middle school/early high school) I gave up adding sweetener to tea and basically had it straight. It wasn’t constant, but it was my preferred drink.

Also in my youth, I was smoking. A lot. At one point I was at three packs a day. One day the price was raised and I said “that’s it, I am tired of The Man taking all of my money” and I quit cold turkey. I replaced it with tea. You see, a lot of my cigarettes were what I’d call automatic - pick up the phone, pick up a cigarette. Start the car, fire up a cigarette. Breaking of this smoking habit was hard, but to help keep my hands busy I simply started carrying a glass or cup of iced tea. That helped me get through that first month, and that truly solidified my tea obsession.

Now on to my “tea secrets”!

The ingredients for the ultimate iced tea. Behind them are two nearly full pitchers bought at a restaurant supply company, so I always have tea on hand.

Ultimate Iced Tea

I drink this year around, and go through about a gallon a day. Due to issues with how the body reacts to caffeine (basically on the advice of my doctor) this is decaff. Don’t get me wrong, caffeine doesn’t keep me up at night and never has, but this is to help protect my blood pressure numbers. Anyway, here is the formula:

• One Luzianne family-sized tea bag

• Two single-serving tea bags of Bigelow’s Constant Comment

Pictured above are the decaff versions of Luzianne and Constant Comment, so if caffeine keeps you up at night feel free to go this route. I fill a pitcher with nearly a gallon of boiling water with these tea bags, and let it steep until the water is room temperature. I usually have it without ice as I prefer it at room temperature anyway. People that come over and have this iced tea for the first time always remark it is the best iced tea they’ve ever had.

You can substitute other teas in for the Constant Comment for some variety if you like, but I usually stick with this winning formula.

A “dirty” chai, from Starbucks. This is sweet, and I’m not going to lie, it is intense.

Dirty Chai

At one point I became obsessed with chai. I absolutely love a good cup of chai, and as Starbucks has been a regular place I visit (and has been for decades now, all for various teas), I tried their chai - both hot and cold. One day when I was getting some iced chai (and I was already asking for extra pumps of their chai concentrate), the barista joked that they have to add less milk to my chais because of all the chai pumps and said something along the lines of “at some point you’ll ask for no milk to make room for the pumps”. This gave me an idea - why not get it without milk, add extra water, and see how that tastes? It turns out it is delicious, at least to me. This only works on the iced version, not the hot version.

A few months later at a different Starbucks I ordered my iced chai minus milk with a couple extra pumps, and the barista said “Oh you mean a dirty chai. Where did you serve?” I had no idea what she was talking about, so I asked her about this and found out the following.

It seems during the Gulf War - and in particular the actions in Afghanistan - many service men and women were deployed to various locations and the locals had chai. They found it delicious, but then it was hard to head out on extended patrols or remote locations away from such things as refrigeration, and simply tried drinking this new chai drink without milk. Many really loved it and even preferred it, and when they returned home would often order it at Starbucks this way. I don’t know whether the baristas or the service personnel referred to it as “dirty chai” first, but it was known at a few Starbucks’ in my area as either a dirty chai or a military chai. The most common reference was dirty chai, and that’s what I use now.

I typically order a trenta and get 9 pumps of chai concentrate, which is a lot.

Here’s the trick to ordering it. Normally you will get charged for a custom iced tea, or for a chai with two extra pumps. However if you order it as “trenta ice water with nine pumps of chai”, the confused barista might just charge you per pump, and the total will come out to well less than one dollar! With tax in my area it is 87 cents. Amazing.

Don’t get carried away and order it a lot! I did that, ordering it daily and ended up on a strict liquid diet of watered-down cranberry juice and chicken broth for a week to get rid of pancreatitis. I was fortunate my doctor didn’t hospitalize me, as most doctors would.

I have extra tea in storage. Believe it or not, this is before an order arrived with more tea. I said I drink a lot.

Tea Time

I do a lot of tea drinking. I order from places near and far, and even have had friends ship me tea from faraway lands. It’s a strong black hot tea first thing in the morning, and a quick hot tea before bed, and plenty of iced tea during the day. I am on a first name basis with easily a dozen Starbucks baristas, and I also frequent local coffee shops as well. And while it may not be dirty chai, every Friday is chai day.

And with that, the kettle is whistling, and off I go to the kitchen to pour boiling water over a tea bag or two.