Yesterday at lunch I was making myself some tea when a co-worker walked by and almost lost her mind when she saw that I was using loose leaf tea instead of bagged tea. She actually said, "what kind of tea are you drinking that looks like that?"

Of course I was drinking your average black tea, but she thought I was drinking some kind of exotic blend, because she was actually able to see the leaves, rather than the powder-ish mixture that I'm sure she's observed all her life from grocery store bagged teas.

First off, let me say that I don't have anything against bagged teas. I have quite a few varieties in my place right now. But my point of course is that for a lot of people, that's what tea is. They don't know any different. Heck, a lot of people might not even know where tea comes from. They may even think it's some kind of processed powder... like Kool-Aid or Hot Chocolate mix.

Tea is not a powder. It is not processed or created in a lab (or at least it's not supposed to be). Tea comes from a plant, called Camellia Sinensis. It was discovered a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Okay, that last part isn't true. But the point is, tea has been around for a very long time. Long before tea bags.

Nowadays tea comes to us in a variety of ways: loose, bagged, in satchets, bottle, jugs, a Starbucks cup... but no matter what it looks like when it gets to your door (or your grocery store shelf), it always starts with the leaf. A lot of people tend to ask (or comment) about how expensive it must be for me to be drinking higher quality, loose leaf tea. In fact, most higher quality teas manage to give us multiple infusions. So the dollar per cup ratio goes down considerably. Especially when you have total control of the leaves.

So the next time you get the urge for a little tea, think twice before grabbing that six pack off the shelf from the soft drink aisle. Tea is not nor should it be a soft drink.

Tea is a gift.