Tea Leaves

I don't know who the first was to package tea leaves in disposable bags but I wish I could go back in time and strangle them.  It seems humans have some inherent desire to to create order.  The irony is that much of what we do to create order - package things, shrink wrap things, put things in cardboard containers, etc. - only proves to aggrandize the disorder at some later stage.  I'm thinking here of garbage cans, landfills and garages filled with cardboard boxes that lay in waiting for the day they will once again get to hold things - a day that almost certainly will not come.

Anyways, tea leaves...  The experience of sipping tea infused by a bag of chopped up death (okay, I might be exaggerating here) is markedly different from sipping tea infused by leaves that are allowed to float freely in the water.  Sure, the latter requires a little bit of oral dexterity, but it is worth the sight of leaves swimming through the water as if they're living their second lives as aquatic beasts.  I know this has an elitist tone to it, but I want to be clear here that I'm not saying (in a snooty English accent) "oh, tea is so much better when delicately sipped from water steeped with the essence of floating leaves."  No, I'm suggesting a visual experience that meliorates the overall experience.  So, please give this a try.  You will most certainly thank me.

By the way, I don't claim this idea as my own.  Many cultures drink their tea this way.  I am just an admiring follower of a different way.