Mr. Tea

I'm not a huge fan of tea. People around the office (and apparently around the world, considering tea is second only to water in terms of human consumption) are constantly downing the stuff, and it seems that everyone I know loves a tall glass of iced tea in the summertime. But, as for myself, I've never much enjoyed the bitter taste of dirty leaf water.

Maybe I just have a dirt-tea mind.

My beverages of choice tend to be manufactured; not grown. I like soda and energy drinks and other things that will expedite my inevitable shuffling off of this mortal coil.

However, I discovered a while back that there is an exception to my no-tea rule, and it's name is Chai. Upon my discovery of this yummy beverage, I declared that I don't know what "Chai" means, but if it doesn't mean "delicious" then this universe is seriously effed up.

Pictured: Liquid Mmmm-mmmm.

As it turns out, this universe is seriously effed up. In fact, it is even more effed up than I would have guessed.

I finally decided to stop joking about the meaning of the word "Chai", and instead look up the etymology of the word. I simply had to know the answer to that age-old question: why Chai? What could that word mean? Why was it bestowed upon one of the world's most awesome drinks?

According to my primary resource (Wikipedia; also my only resource), "in many Eurasian languages, chai or cha is the word for tea". Yep, that's right: Chai tea is... tea-tea.

Shows her tea-teas at work.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. As good as this stuff is, it really does deserve to be the very definition of tea. It just seems strange to call something a "tea-tea". It's kind of confusing. Do I want a tea? No, I want a tea-tea. Why? Because I don't just like it; I like-like it. 

As if the idea of there being a drink called a "tea tea" wasn't strange enough, it actually gets weirder when you consider that the drink is often served as a Chai Tea Latte.

Wikipedia (that infinite fount of possibly-trustworthy knowledge) tells me that the word "latte" is an Italian word meaning "coffee milk", which means that a Chai Tea Latte is actually a Tea-Tea Coffee-Milk. That would simply seem to be the ingredients list for the beverage, except that there's no fucking coffee in a Tea-Tea Coffee-Milk!

Also frustrating: No coke in Coke.

The actual ingredients in a Chai Tea Latte are strong black tea, rich milk, sweetener and numerous distinctive, fragrant spices such as black pepper (whaaa?), cardamom (your mom!), cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and the herb fennel (whatever that is). In any case, through what I can only assume is some sort of dark voodoo magic, these things somehow combine to form something that tastes like a warm rainbow exploding on your tongue.

Or what I like to refer to as a "mouthgasm".

So I guess the point of this article is that despite the fact that it's a lying liar, prancing around town pretending to be a "tea-tea coffee-milk" when it's really just a (totally effing delicious) tea and milk, Chai Tea Latte is the only tea fit for human consumption. If you haven't had Chai Tea before, you need to try it immediately. It will change your life. Bury all other teas in the ground from whence they came, and where God intended them to stay.