The Sober Sister to Wine

Tea has many flavors, just like wine. Similar to different varietals of wine grapes growing in different environments and climates, teas are amalgamations of different flower petals and leaves from different plants from all reaches of the world.
Historically, both wine and tea has a rich background in origin, trade, diaspora and variety.
The one similarity they share that intrigues me the most is the way they play with your nose and tongue so well. Tasting a red wine slowly can reveal several berries, nuts and other random things from the world like tobacco, wood, moss, leather or gun powder. Depending on the tea you drink, you can smell ginger, rose, baby leaves from Japan or British gun powder (just like wine). It's so interesting and fascinating. I love playing with my senses with these two beverages!
My favorite teas vary so often but I usually arrive back at my basic green tea every time I get bored. Green tea, at the height of it's heat that you are just able to drink it, tastes delicious. I can get that fresh leaf taste with a slight crisp minty after-exhale. I love (accidentally) getting it on my fingertips and later throughout the day, smelling what resembles cigarette scent. There are several flavored green teas which are nice too, I enjoy peach. When it comes to the purists vs. the "whatevers"- I definitely enjoy fresh and loose tea leaves, however its more expensive and messy dealing with the disposal and cleaning. Not only am I cheap but I'm also lazy, so I cannot handle the extra work that luxury entails.
Ever open a fashion magazine at the height of a confused year and view a truly ugly model wear a truly ugly dress? But after a couple views, you think, "huh, its so ugly, its almost cool"- well that, in tea form, is oolong. It is so bitter and weird tasting (gun powder!) that its good. And even better yet, because of it's bitterness, it is complimented naturally with sugary treats. I remember taking tea breaks when I worked at a Real Estate office; the boss' favorite tea was Oolong, and he would invite all the admins into his personal office and share tea and cookies at exactly 3pm. About five minutes later, he would dismiss us and we'd go back to filling the printer and folding fliers.
The one tea that has been the most entertaining is blooming tea that opens (a flower of tea leaves sewn together like a flower) when you pour the hot water into the glass pot. My Aunt had a birthday tea party at the Ritz in San Francisco a few years ago and we enjoyed several teas, champagnes and petit fours. Since I've already had a wine-tasting party in the past two years and since I just received a gift of blooming teas from the very same Aunt, I plan to have a tea tasting party soon. So, of the few and far between that read these blogs, I'd love to start inviting you to a party this spring, to taste these teas, have some champagne and sweets and a few laughs.
Cheers!