Every morning I have a refreshing cup of herbal tea.
If ever I mention this to anyone, the usual reaction is "yuck".
Actually, it's delicious. My other half buys several varieties and every day, like a good bloke should, prepares a cup every morning at 6.30am for his beloved. (Yes, the grumpy old woman has another half! This probably indicates that she's not grumpy ALL the time).
And every morning, as I enjoy this delicious beverage, I wonder why most people have such a negative reaction to herbal tea. Well, it's obvious really ...
BAD MARKETING.
You see, calling herbal beverages 'tea', makes people believe that they are a version of the PG Tips we all grew up with. If you're expecting to enjoy a mouthful of tea, and what you actually get is cinnamon zinger (one of my favorites) you're bound to be disappointed, no matter how good it tastes. This is simply because you're expecting the taste of tea and you get the taste of something completely different.
I'm surprised that there isn't some sort of legislation, actually. After all, the manufacturers of olive oil spread have to call it just that - spread - rather than 'butter' or 'margarine'. (Did you know, incidentally, that India produces and consumes more butter than any other nation? Well, now you do).
Now, tea is "the agricultural products of the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the Camellia sinensis plant" according to the internet. Herbal tea is " a herbal infusion made from anything other than the leaves of the tea bush (Camellia sinensis)".
So by that reckoning, anything that don't have camellia whatsit involved, isn't tea. Or is it? Whichever way, if you tell most people that you're going to give them a nice cup of tea, then give them a cup of cinnamon zinger, they are going to be disappointed because of their expectation.
I once read something by the British playwright, Tom Stoppard, who said that for years he had wondered why Italian restaurants could never cook spaghetti Bolognaise correctly. From top-notch posh places in Rome, to humble trats in Soho, no-one could ever get it right. Then he realized that he didn't actually LIKE spaghetti Bolognaise because what he was used to was the so-called spaghetti Bolognaise that his wife (from Birmingham) cooked.
Expectations, you see. It's just the same with tea.
Americans are strangely fond of something they call iced tea. I have tasted this bizarre substance and, expecting it to be something like a cold glass of Earl Grey with lemon, was naturally disappointed. But if it was called something else, without the 'tea' part, those expectations wouldn't be there and I might have found it quite pleasant.
Well, it makes sense to me.
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