Alright, I confess. Having a small amount of income leftover to “play around with” can be nice. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel badly about buying frivolous, not-needed items. But sweet candy on a stick, some things just make life better.

So I grew up a coffee lover. Hell, most of my high school years were spent hour after aimless hour at one of three coffee shops. My weekend nights were based geographically around at least one stop to Sufficient Grounds, Brewed Awakenings or Maxwell’s Brew. Heck, towards the end of my senior year I just gave up and studied at Maxwell’s.

Needless to say, I love me some coffee.

Actually, now that I think about it, I just like lazy beverages. I drink gallons of water a day, and stay almost exclusively away from soda/pop/Coke. I don’t do juices. For that matter, I rarely drink alcohol these days…and I never just “grab a beer” with someone. But with casual beverages (like a rare iced tea on a hot summer night), I like to incorporate them into my daily life.

Let me introduce you to TEA.

So I’ve always thought tea was the wussy cousin of coffee. While I was consuming up to two pots a day in college, I would have maniacally laughed had you suggest I try tea. Well, all it took was a sludge-like substance that my office pretends to be coffee to get me to switch. Plus I was enamored by the ceremony of it. You just *get* coffee…but with tea, there’s preparation.

I started back in the fall, with Kroger brand green tea bags. The first half of the 60-bag box had a defect that didn’t sew up the bags at all…so you end up drinking the tea leaves. Though I tried stapling the bags myself, it all tasted like the pencil sharpener from grade school (woody yet cheap). Whatever. I thought this was tea.

Well then I decided to splurge. I must have been on drugs, because I got all wild in the Kroger isle one day and shelled out $5 bucks for some Tazo tea. Much better. But bags seemed cheap to me still. So I started reading. Loose tea leaves seemed to be the way to go. So I got a steeping pot. That’s where it all began.

Fast forward to today. I have reached nirvana. Err, actually Teavana. After trying a few health-store packaged brands (way better, but still stale tasting), I gave Teavana a try. When the delivery arrived in my office today, I could smell it outside of the heavy DHL cardboard box.

Good Lord. This…this is tea.

When I switched to tea, I wanted a caffinated casual drink to have while I worked, but didn’t require cream or sugar to mask the horrid taste in order for me to choke it down. What I’ve found (at least in this first cup of Masala Green Chai) is the most delicate, intricate, light substance I’ve ever had. I had no idea a consumable product could be this dynamic and subtle in flavor. Is this what wine snobs speak of? I thought those asshats always made up that crap…

Some day I’ll move back to coffee, trying CoffeeAM.com (where the parents get their incredible coffee). But for now, the pomp and circumstance, the ceremony of steeping a pot of tea is just, cool to me.

Call me a yuppie for throwing $20 bucks away on 120 cups of tea. Call me an indie snob for liking the subculture of tea.

Whatever, dude, I’ve got the best smelling and most rockin’ist beverage on the block.