I’m sick and drinking tea

Monday, February 19, 2007

I magically got a little sick (I never get sick). My throat hurts. It’s not good. Luckily I’m a guy and it’s okay for me to clear my throat profusely about a dozen times an hour. Additionally, we’re allowed to spit up anything we find back there. Gross? Sure. Sense of relief? Definitely. Anyway, one of the perks of working at a big company is the unlimited sources of hot drinks in the break room. Read on as I explore the tea section…

No, seriously. I’m going to use today to drink all the different teas available to me in the break room. Hopefully one of the many will help me find relief. Even if I don’t, I’ll feel accomplished: I drank every tea available. I should be in charge of boosting morale because it’s lunch time and I’m still excited to be at work…

Green Tea

To begin, the box says there is caffeine and antioxidants. Of course, it describes this much more eloquently than I. But, you get the point: I’m somehow going to be alert and healthy having indulged said tea. Looking at the little packet though the ingredients read as follows: “Ingredients: Green Tea“. Not only did they neglect to mention the caffeine and antioxidants, it didn’t taste much better than leaf water. In fact my stomach hurts a tad.

C-

Lemon Zinger

What on earth is a zinger? I don’t think Celestial Seasonings had any of these definitions in mind. Oh, I taste the zing now. Neato. It even makes my office smell like zing. Mmm mm. The taste is far better than the Green Tea and the tint of red leads me to believe there is some sort of berry involved in this. I glanced at the ingredients list again. This time there were about 20; I didn’t have time to actually look at them. This is probably what tea is meant to taste like.

A-

Hot Chocolate

It’s not tea but I needed something tasty for lunch. What do I get when I go to Starbucks? Yeah. I’m not a big caffeine/coffee/tea guy.

A+

Mandarin Orange Spice

This one smells the best out of all of them so far. It was with this packet I also learned that there are quotes on the end of the little dipping tabby thing. I’m obviously not a (celestial) seasoned tea drinker. Here was my quote: “There’s nothing that keeps its youth, so far as I know, but a tree and a truth.” Huh? I think I need to drink more tea to start understanding poetry. Oh, the orange tasted alright. Not quite as nice as the zinger.

B

Earl Gray

At this point I’m just a little sick of tea. It’s 3:30 and I don’t think my burnt tongue was up for this. I feel funny, too. Maybe it’s the tea, maybe it’s the old pizza for lunch, or maybe even that expired yogurt I had for breakfast. Whatever it is, Earl Gray is only compounding the problem. It’s too boring. Sure, if this were a perfect world I’d probably have lemon, milk and honey on standby but I don’t. Thus, a terrible stand-alone grade.

D

The End

There you have it; that was my tea experience. There’s really no excuse for this, I’m not even taking any drugs. Tune in next week to watch my continual progress as I slip further into insanity.