I’m going to stop doing it. And not only because the law has changed. I’m going to put this filthy habit to bed… if I can.  Like that petty criminal in that O. Henry story, I will reform. My vice is tea-leaf chucking.  I’ve long thought of myself as better than other litterers. I would never have thrown the contents of an ashtray out of the window, nor plastic yoghurt pots. I’ve thought of the tea leaves I chuck as “like the leaves of Autumn”; fresh from nature and eager to return to nature. Indeed, the...

They call it “herbal medicine”. And in this house, this week, it’s everywhere. I call it “horrible medicine”. But I actually quite like it.  It smells of fragrant-soil and it tastes like fragrant-soil-with-brown-sugar.   Apparently, it has an English name; Isatis Tinctoria. But, like the names for all those things popular only in China, that’s not really an English name.  The brew hasn’t caught on elsewhere; what Americans call root-beer is a completely different thing. But here it’s enormous. As I write, your local pharmacy is selling fast out. There’s no scientific evidence that...

Strainer readers may recall, about 3 years ago, reading about a new concept in tea preparation. It was called InWE Tea (因味茶). It exerted on the tea leaf high pressure as well as high heat, much like brewing an espresso. I was excited.  Maybe I was wrong to be too excited. While most of the company’s tea bars do still exist, my prediction that we would all start fracking our tea leaves has been unfulfilled; tea capsule machines have not become mainstream.   Except that aluminium tea capsules are appearing. Maybe you’ve...

You’re familiar with the rule by now. Do not carry your own liquids allowed into the airport departure lounge.  … except that I was drinking an awesome green tea I’d brought with me from China. And no one was asking me to surrender my cup. How long, I wondered, could I keep this up?  Right up to the boarding gate, it turns out.    Actually, it’s quite the comfort to have tea, especially green, in one’s hand while being herded through an airport. But why haven’t any of the other liquids in my...