It’s tea time!

I’m the girl that only forgoes her morning cup of coffee when she has the stomach flu or some other debilitating sickness that turns coffee into an evil substance.

That said, if a mid afternoon slump hits me and I have a second (or lets face it third) cup of coffee, I get a major headache and feel horrible. For a while I was choosing sugar to put the pep back in my step, but that was only making me crash harder later on and wasn’t helping me on my continual quest to get healthy.

Then, luckily for me (and my growing waistline), a new co-worker at the office brought in her tea maker for loose-leaf tea. Finally, I could crack open one of the wonderfully packaged black tins we’d received a while back from Sahara Tea. With names like OM SWEET OM, 100 MYSTERIES, BEAUTIFUL FOOLISHNESS and (my personal favourite) BUDDAH SMILES, I’d been itching to have a cup of each since they entered the building. I work in marketing for a reason—I love things that catch my eye. And the brightly coloured, pretty, yet Zen packaging of these teas definitely did.

The goodness didn’t end at the appealing container; the tea itself is simply delightful. Light, refreshing and slightly sweet, BUDDAH SMILES revived me without making me anxious the way an afternoon coffee does, and the flavours danced in my mouth, tantalizing my senses. In a way it acted as a palette cleanser, erasing the flavours of the late lunch I’d just had.

I have to admit my heart was set on liking this tea because it was branded so well, but after several cups, I can truthfully say that I would like it if it showed up in a brown paper bag. Not that I usually consume things I find in random paper bags.

Now my mission is to buy my own tea infuser/maker. Anyone have a favourite?