True to my threat, I headed off to Starbucks the other day, arrayed in my new role of authorhood, only to be greeted with the strangest of news. You see, I just wasn't up for a whole mocha-choka-broka-latte thing, and so I thought I could go for a simple iced tea.
Not so; for I discovered that there is nothing simple about iced tea anymore.
Not only do we now have to infuse said tea (I thought tea used to be steeped) but it appears that this tea which has been gently sweetened with only the most natural of ingredients, now needs to be shaken vigorously before I can consume it.
As much as I love my multiple glasses of Pinot Grigio, I've never really been a martini kind of gal and I suppose I just may be jealous of those who order what appears to be the most exotic of beverages. I admit right now that I have always loved the sound that the jiggling ice makes inside one of those metal shakers. Yes, that drink is shaken vigorously. That is, until it is poured. For, once poured, it becomes the most delicate beverage around. Did you ever notice that the wait staff practically has to tip-toe to your table to deliver it? And a glass that is shaped like a funnel? There is no more perfect way to serve liquor (except that somewhere along the way they plugged up the intended delivery system with a glass stem and the drinker is now forced to drink from the wrong end of the funnel.) And what about the toasting? Those martini drinkers all belong to their own private client group, for you cannot really clink their glass whilst proclaiming, "Cheers!" in case any of that precious liquid slosh over the edge. No, they get their own special air-clink instead.
But I digress.
We were speaking of tea here. Tea, which has never been shaken, nor clinked, nor infused in the 57 years I have resided on this planet. Ice-cold tea, which is then served to you in the most boring of plastic cups which bears your name and some fancy tea-identifying-initials and whose very essence of coldness then proceeds to sweat down the outside of the very same cup so that it requires at least five paper napkins to sop up the mess accumulated from one small Grande receptacle.
Cheers!
