I brought you here to bed my son, not throw him a tea party!

Inspired by a blog post by a good friend and tea connoisseur (find it here) and by the general fact that I haven't blogged in a little while (courtesy of my continued lack of a computer since the passing of my laptop), I have decided that the main thrust of today's random babble will be the short (current) chronology of my journey through the wonderful, mystical world of tea drinking. Also, quick poll - is having "Unfinished Symphony" by Massive Attack playing in the background really appropriate right now? I think so.

Anyway, to the matter at hand.

Tea.

Like many beverages in my life, tea was just...around. It was something my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles drank, but it never seemed to appeal to me. I never really knew what it was and I'm pretty sure the only time I ever made cups as a small child was so I could let them go cold, then use the tea to paint treasure maps I made. This was a brief phase that junior school inspired. At least, I think we used tea. It might have been coffee. It was a beverage. It had milk. It made crumpled up bits of A4 paper look old treasure maps. Pre-teen me was happy with that.

Now we skip ahead to my teenage years. Far ahead. It was sometime after my GCSE year, somewhere around the mysterious ages of sixteen, seventeen or eighteen. My friends were rather distressed to discover that I had never properly sampled tea. They proceeded to make me a cup. I'm presuming it was some kind of PG Tips attempt at English Breakfast tea or something like that. As far as I knew at that time, tea came in one variety.

Oh how wrong I was.

So that cup of tea was distinctly less than impressive. This is not to be construed as an indictment of the tea-making abilities of my friends. As I have learned, English Breakfast is not a tea for me.

My proper tea education came in the early half of 2011. It arose from necessity, as I work at the Boston Tea Party, in their Bath store. As is suggested by the name on the side of the building, we sell tea. Proper, good, wholesome loose leaf tea. Initially I was just a dishwashing scut-monkey, but I rose through the ranks to become a Front of House wench. Part of being a Front of House wench (not an official term I might stress) is a working knowledge (basic or otherwise) of the teas that we sell. Twenty-two varieties.

In the course of my tea-tasting session, I discovered, to my mind, an incredible fact. I found that I like tea. Or at least, five of the twenty-two varieties that we sell. They were Lapsang Souchong (still my favourite to this day), Dragonwell (proper name Lung Ching), Spearmint, Balance (a rather funky herbal tea with various things, like ginger, cinnamon and I think rose petals, or some form of rose) and Boston Berry. But this was just the beginning.

Later, in September 2011, I met up with my friend Noodles and we went to the Teahouse Emporium (where my aforementioned tea connoisseur friend works). By this time, I had made an incredible discovery. See, one of my colleagues had been talking about this fact he discovered on the back of a Twinings tea packet - Earl Grey goes better with orange than with lemon, due to the presence of bergamot oils. This led to an experiment with my favourite Lapsang Souchong. After a couple of tries, I found that orange was a far more beautiful compliment than lemon. And thus began my quest to tell pretty much everyone I know about this. Also, every customer who orders Lapsang with me gets the spiel. Most have been converted. Some have not. Thus is the way of the world.

Anyway, back to the Teahouse and Noodles.

This visit to the Teahouse was the first of many and the beginning of my further education. I learned how to make green tea properly, which led to my affinity for Chinese Gunpowder and its variation, Moroccan Mint (Gunpowder with mint leaves. I should mention, I love mint). My friend Phoenix has since gained employment at the Teahouse and my visits have increased, with new teas being tried and added to my repertoire of favoured teas - Pu-Erh Sweet Chai, Pu-Erh Wellness Guarana, and Mate IQ to name but a few. And as I continue my patronage of the Teahouse, my journey shall continue. I mean, with one hundred and seventeen varieties of tea, I have quite a bit of choice.

But it doesn't stop there. No, I've become a tea drinking fiend at home too. As may be plain to see from a prior blog about my perfect Sunday, I have a teapot. A nice, matte black, four-cup teapot. Which does about three Aperture Laboratories mugs' worth of tea (thank you, Valve Store!). Since that first perfect Sunday, every successive Sunday has involved work in the morning, tea in afternoon, quiz in the evening. Finest kind.

So there it is. My continuing journey through the world of tea. It's a fascinating world, folks. Read my friend's blog (link at the top), he puts it far more eloquently than I can. But rest assured - there is most definitely a tea out there for you, more exotic and exciting than English Breakfast. Trust me, I work in a place with "tea" on the side of the building.

Now my perfect Sunday...

We're breaking out the Hot Fuzz quotations this time (sorry Joss), as the most prominent subject in my mind is my perfect Sunday. The perfect Sunday that I just had.

So. My perfect Sunday. It kicked off with, as most Sundays do now, with being at work. It was a beautiful, sunny day and anyone familiar with the English weather's current behavioural patterns will know that it just hasn't been sunny for a long while. The typical English response to this - mass exodus from their houses, descend on their town centres and then harass poor, innocent cafe workers with their relentless tide of tedious requests.

I assure you I am not in the least bit bitter about any of this. Honestly.

Anyway, back to my perfect Sunday. So far, you might think it had been a bit pants. I'd been stuck inside all day, serving the general population who were enjoying the sunshine. But strangely enough, that didn't manage to detract from how nice my day became. If anything, it provided a much needed contrast, thus balance, enabling my day to be perfect.

Could I say "perfect" any more? I'll let you keep the running score.

Eventually, work finished, I managed to run away. Now, a bit of context here. My laptop died after three years of noble service (this post is being crafted on my housemate's Mac. The switch around of the @ and " keys is still a little disconcerting). Due to this, when I arrived home on Sunday, I did not automatically switch on said deceased laptop and check my emails. Instead, I made myself a pot of tea (Moroccan mint. Finest kind), stretched myself out on a sofa in our now clean and tidy living room and proceeded to blitz my way through The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov.

About half an hour into these extremely pleasant and relaxed proceedings, I had my epiphany. I was in the middle of my perfect Sunday. Everything was calm and peaceful, I had a good book and some damn good tea (thank you Teahouse Emporium!). All was well. The Universe was in balance. Could it get any better?

Apparently so.

You see, I am a man of infinitely useless knowledge. And that knowledge occasionally finds a convenient outlet in a pub quiz setting. So when my friend Phoenix text me and asked if I wanted to go to the quiz, my evening was pretty much set.

Quick aside: my close friends all have call signs. This is a result of extreme Battlestar Galactica geekdom, which manifested in August 2010. My wingman, Starbuck (so named for the obvious reason of being my wingman...or really wingwoman), was elsewhere while I was at a club, where I was hoping to run into a girl I had met (/Starbuck had made sure I talked to). In a moment of nervous geekdom, I text Starbuck for advice and called her the aforementioned call sign. It stuck. Since then, many people have call signs. I received mine (from Starbuck) in November 2010: Achilles. Why? Because girls are my Achilles' Heel.

They really, really are.

So anyway, pub quiz with Phoenix, Starbuck's boyfriend Wench and two other mutual friends who have yet to receive call signs, rounded off my perfect Sunday. We may have only placed 5th, but it was still an extremely enjoyable evening.

There you have it. My perfect Sunday. Tea, a good book, followed by a damn good quiz. Tradition to continue next week, with different tea, different book, but same quiz and more than likely the same team. But who knows? The future holds many wonderful possibilities. Assassin Girl could come into the cafe and I could finally pluck the courage to ask her out. Kindle Girl might impress me first. A rampaging mob of respectable feminists may murder me for the previous two comments. The editor of SFX could come back in, I would recognise him this time (not just his Mass Effect N7 hoodie) and the resulting conversation could land me my dream job.

If only.

Alternatively, I settle for him noticing the Twitter post linking to this blog, reading it, putting two and two together and then offering me a job...

I get the feeling I'll see Assassin Girl before then...