If folks want to qualify their beverages as “rooibos tea” or “camomile tea”, that’s fine, I know what they mean. “Tea” has become a generic term for plant-stuff-in-water, and that’s okay, as long as it’s qualified. But don’t ask me if I want a cup of tea and then offer a bunch of herbal stuff, and don’t call a bundle of roots and berries “tea leaves”, because that’s crazy talk. And get that bullshit “white tea” stuff out of here, good grief, what is that anyway???
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White tea seems to be actual Camellia Sinensis - leaves that you steep in hot (though not boiling) water. As uses of the word “tea” go, that doesn’t seem too bad?
And despite defending “herbal tea” as a solid choice of vocabulary, I agree that offering “tea” and not having black (or even green or white) tea is completely unacceptable.
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True, it’s supposedly un-processed tea leaves which you’re supposed to brew for about thirty seconds in warm-to-hot water. In my experience it tastes like 1% tea, 99% water. Or like whatever it’s been flavored with (usually peach or berries).
You’ve never had good white tea then. It’s become popular, so every multi-billion dollar company offers an assortment of white tea options now, but most are on the level of Lipton’s. Real white tea is delicate and aromatic and a calming experience.
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If one steeps Silver Needle at 55°C for thirty seconds, one is doing Sliver Needle wrong. (And then there’s the ridiculousness of 1:6 blends of white tea:fruit/herbals being touted as ‘white tea’.)
I was bored silly by white tea the first time I tasted it. It’s plausible that the person who made it made one or more errors (low leaf:water water ratio, etc.), but I think it was because I simply hadn’t developed my palate for it. When you’re used to the brusqueness of black tea and the not-so-subtle aroma of oolongs, white tea’s gentle nature can be elusive at first.
Now that I enjoy it (especially Silver Needle), I’ve found that even my taste in black teas has shifted. I still enjoy a stout Assam every now and then, but nowadays I more often reach for a more delicate black such as a first-flush Darjeeling.
Neither of these, of course, should be prepared or inserted in one’s vagina.
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Mmmm vaginal tea to go with vaginal bread…
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And if your car runs solely on ethanol (and you have enough vaginal yeast and human blood), you can drive to the bakery to buy something tasty after your bread and tea are finished.
And then you can drive to the bar for a <a href=https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=23562>particular beer…unless you’re headed for the hospital after all that.
Another novelty / artisanal beer possibility for Rogue Brewery!
UPDATE: Rogue Brewery never responded to my suggestion, after the auto-brewery-syndrome story fabrication, that the supposed intestinal yeast posed a commercial opportunity. It’s as if they don’t value my input.
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Now I am imagining a new entry in the “Weird Japanese Vending Machines” genre.
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But for birth control, follow Dr. Bronner’s guide to inserting butter and “juicy lemon pulp” in there! (from the original Bronner’s Peppermint soap label):
Essene-Chinese Birth-Controls Reduce Birth or we destroy God’s spaceship Earth! Absolute cleanliness is Godliness! God’s law prevents conception 100% below pH3. Essenes 400 years contracepted with rose hips at pH2. So, apply vaseline, oil butter or cream, insert teaspoonful juicy lemon pulp, pH2 … OK! … Next day douche with quart soapy water, pH8, restoring pH5 balance God made! For who else but God gave man Love that can spark mere dust to life! Poetry, uniting All-One! All brave! All life! Like a beacon breaking through dark clouds that past, who else but God can make love last 1 trillion years of sweet eternities! Who else but God! Who else but God! Who else! (See 26 verses ‘How To Love’ on Dr. Bronner’s Almond Soap quart, uniting All-One above!)
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wow I should read that text more fully. good soap though.
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I’ve been reading the labels for years, but I guess my constitutionals are not long enough to have discovered that bit of “wisdom”. 
I’ll just stick to using it externally.
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Jeeze, that reads like something Francis Dec would have written.
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It was on the big gallon jugs. I think it’s been edited out these days.
Shut up and take my money already!
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People seem to think that any plant matter that you soak in hot water = tea.
By that same logic, all hot cereals are oatmeal…
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Especially cabbage and silverbeet.
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Mmmmm cabbage tea!
