jasmine tea and prejudices against green tea

China. It is known as the motherland of tea. You can find any kind of tea there. Thousands of varieties of tea. I have never guessed that China is such famous for its tea. People (most of them) can not drink coffee and they got used to drink cola and other beverages in the near future. Speaking of people in history, tea should be the only drink that has been drunk and served. As a matter of fact, this custom has been maintaining till today. It doesnt matter where you go, and what part of China you have been, as soon as you sit, tea will be served.

This custom is so similar to ours in Anatolia. but the tea we serve is black tea. Any place you go, you will find only one kind of tea and one serving method: black tea in a special tea-cup with two pieces of sugar.

If you read the book, yes, I would love another of glass of tea, which contents the letters of an American woman and her adventures in Turkey, you will see so clearly the interesting customs of Turks and our tea serving habits. -I would love to write a post about this book but it has not finished yet-.

Here, I want to give point to the similarity of our culture but i should add also that tea was not a part of our culture. Instead, coffee has been drunk during the Ottoman era. But today, it is known that coffee belongs to American culture and tea is a part of our Anatolian culture. Intermixed cultural habits. Anyway.

ah, I was talking about tea and China. Getting back to subject, it is very little known that even the word we use for tea in Turkish comes from Chinese. 'Cha' is used to refer tea in China and we use 'çay' to refer and they pronounce almost same. History of tea in Turkey can not pass one hundred years while it is thousands years in Chinese history.

When i was in China, probably thousands of cups of tea has been served to me and i might to drink only ten cups of them, maybe less. I have been there more than five years and drunk just little of green tea? It is so hard to imagine it but that is the truth. Unfortunately.

I have never thought about it till i move to Taiwan.

I got used to drink Jasmine tea after went to Taiwan.. I ve never drunk it before but I am drinking it now with pleasure. When i got used to drink green tea, I figured out that I couldn't drink it only because it came to very bitter to me. Coz I have added a lot of sugar in my tea and I could drink only if i did so.

At first, I tried to drink jasmine tea by adding a little sugar and later on, it came to very strange to drink sweet. It is a bit bitter but you can feel the real taste of it. I still can not drink black tea without adding sugar but it s not same for green tea.

Green tea is more healthy and more tasteful. Since start to drink green tea instead of black, I have been criticized by the Turkish people around me. They are getting angry (of course not seriously) to me just because i drop to follow our own Anatolian culture. I insistently tell them that tea is not a part of our culture as i mentioned below, if you pull me to drink coffee, that can be acceptable but if it is black at issue, you don't have any right to criticize. :)