I see this sort of thing all the time. People act as though they are the truest tea conessiour out there and yet only drink flavored tea. Don't get me wrong I find no personal beef with flavored tea. As much as I wish every only drank high quality traditional teas, I know that's not everybody's cup of tea. My peeves are petted when someone is not honest with what type of tea drinker they are.
There are many different kinds of tea out there. From teas with sprinkles to tea grown in poop. There are so many types of tea it is almost too simple to simply say I'm a tea drinker. It's like saying I'm a music listener. What type of music do you listen to? The tea world has grown to a point where to really have a conversation about tea with someone you need to know what type of tea they drink, and more importantly what type of tea do you drink. This is where it is time to get honest.
I consider myself a midlevel tea drinker. I stick solely to traditional teas and I have a decent amount of information about the process of making tea. So while I can tell you about the effect of shade on a growing tea plant, or interesting facts on western tea culture got started, I know that I am by no means a tea expert. I was on the Manderin Tearoom's website the other day, and I was looking at the teas they sold. Just by the price and the way he talked about tea I knew this was some high quality stuff. And as much as I wanted to spend $15 dollars on five grams of tea, I had to ask myself if I really knew enough about tea to truly enjoy it. The simple answer is no. In all my vast knowledge of tea facts, the other day I had trouble distinguishing a yellow tea from a green, and white from an oolong. (not my best day).
The point I am trying to make is that we need to be honest with ourselves and what sort of tea drinker we are. Sun Tzu has a quote that more or less goes "Being able to see the sun in not considered great site, being able to hear thunder claps is not considered acute hearing, the ability to catch a hare does not make you a great hunter" (I cant find my book so the wording is not 100%). If you drink Teavana that's fine, do you. If you drink flavored teas because you don't really taste anything in the finer teas that ok. But if you drink Teavana, please understand the fact you're drinking Teavana. Understand that the reason you cant taste the light berry notes, is because there are actual berries in your tea.
Part of the beauty of tea is that its a giant fucking rabbit hole. You may be drinking David's Tea today, but next year you may be staying in on a Saturday night so you can save money to spend on more expensive teas. (He wrote pretending he wasn't talking about himself again). But if not like I said that's cool too. Just drink your tea with honesty, cause that's the only way you really should.
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