In an effort to save money, I have been drinking 2 cups of coffee in the morning and then packing a tea bag for the afternoon. Today, I needed to purchase tea. In fact, tea selection was the hardest decision I made. Tea stocks 5 full shelves. I immediately went to the tea at eye level: Bigelow. Then I found the more traditional teas, such as English Breakfast and English Tea Time. However, ultimately, I selected Vanilla Caramel Tea. Both price and caffeine count matched that of traditional teas. What was it about this particular tea that made me both debate and ultimately purchase the Vanilla Caramel?
My first experience with tea is one of illness. I remember not feeling well as a little girl and having my mom make me chamomile tea. It was okay, but I remember it not being nearly as sweet as I would have preferred. It tasted more of hot water. My adult experience with tea was in Ireland. The Irish are very serious about their tea and often say that Americans make Shamrock tea: tea with only 3 leaves in it. That is when I started drinking more of the traditional teas. However, I still missed the sweetness. Today, when look at the box it read: A distinctive taste in Tea with a rich and robust vanilla caramel flavor. The keywords distinctive, rich, and robust played to my desire to drink 'real' Irish tea. Then, the picture of the steaming cup of tea reminded me of how tea made me feel better as a child. Then, the warm yellow packaging with the 'steam like' ripples played to my association of yellow with protection from lethargy and depression under cold weather. The top then says 'milk and sweetener round out the delicious flavor,' which made me feel that this tea was going to have what other teas do not - sweetness with Irish 'realism.'
No comments:
Post a Comment