It’s hot as all get out here these days. Work was awful and my particular spot was, of course, the hottest place in the whole lab, and also, of course, the only place where we can’t have a fan going. (When you’re dealing with paraffine sections 2 µm thick, the last thing you want is air movement. All your work will fly away)
So yes. Hot and humid and sweaty and dreadful. And I swear this is relevant information.
I tried brewing this directly in my cup, since my boss is off on holiday and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to drink a whole pot myself in this heat. I was definitely right that we would get a better result if the leaves had more space, but hot tea wasn’t really something I wanted.
So I had this bottle of ICE cold water (Half an hour or so in the -80°C freezer. Just right) and I had this here cup with once-steeped leaves in it. Why not just try some kind of cold brew.
Okay, I admit the water was likely too cold, but I wasn’t really after something exquisitly tea-like. I just need something to drink to stay relatively cool and prevent dehydration and such like.
The result wasn’t half bad. It didn’t have much flavour, but then I didn’t let it sit for all that long before drinking either. It might also be that it was so cold that it just didn’t taste of anything anymore.
It was solely a source of fluids in the heat and as such it was really nice and I’m going to do it again tomorrow. If I had been looking for a flavour of tea however, I’d have been hugely disappointed. But it was definitely more interesting to drink than just plain cold water.
