The Problem of Tea

[Rindan]

Water is precious, but everyone needs it.  Water is the cheapest way to hydrate in Zalanthas.  Juice and milk cost far more, and alcohol dehydrates.  If you want to hydrate in Zalanthas, water is the way to go.  While water might be precious, that doesn't mean it tastes good.  Most Zalanthian probably drink shitty water.  If you MUST drink shitty and expensive water to live, why not throw a few leaves into that water?

As to brewing time, I have no idea what you are drinking, but I can brew tea in about a minute.  Heat the water up to the point just before boiling, throw in some leaves, and call it a day.

I'll agreed that wooden mugs are a bit silly, but there is nothing silly about throwing some leaves into warm water and serving it.  That goes double and triple if the water tastes like crap to begin with.  It isn't like putting leaves in the water diminishes the value of the water.  It still hydrates as well as taking a swig from your waterskin, it just tastes better.  It makes perfect sense to me that after a long hard days work, your average thirsty Joe Amos would plop down in the Gaj for a nice tea instead of some dehydrating alcohol.

If you can get the stuff together to make frigging alcohol, tea is a snap.

As far as the price of tea, tea cost just as much as water plus a few leaves.  Hell, I bet they don't even need to heat the tea as Zalanthas is already plenty hot enough to steep tea.  I don't see what the issue is.  The only thing that this thread has done is convince me that Zalanthas needs MORE tea, not less.

[amoeba]

Now let's go back to water, the most precious rescource on the game.  Does it make sense that you are sitting in the rough and tumble Gaj, sipping on first of all -water- which happens to be as cheap as ale, but not only the most precious rescource but in a little wooden cup with special leaves that take an hour at the least to brew.  That just doesn't make sense to me and doesn't seem very commoner like.  There will still be tea I just think you just have to pay more for it.

The reasoning is somewhat skewed.  

One, you imply each cup is brewed individually? Don't think about our modern world, think zalanthian.  The tea is in a vat behind the bar, steeping for days.  Customer orders a cup, pour out a cup, no harder than ale.  

Two, water is precious, okay and?  You still get all that water when you drink the tea, what do you think ale is made from, sand?  

Three, it costs a lot to make tea. Bunk. Tea is nothing more than leaves in water.  A very few, probably quite common leaves stored in a jug of water for a time. A few sid for the leaves that can make up a crap load of tea.  Your markup is mostly on the price of the water.  If the tea sold for less than the same amount of water, then yes stupid, but it doesn't.  Compare this to ale.  Ale takes a hell of a lot more ingredients than tea, and is quite labor intensive to make.  Plus it is a specialized skill, meaning they probably buy it from someone verses making it up themselves.

It is easy enough to prove to yourself how simple it is to produce tea.  Get a jar with a lid, fill it with water.  Go out to the yard and pick some dandlions and dump them in the jar.  Close the jar and sit it in the sun for a few hours.  Voila you will have tea.  Now it probably tastes pretty awful, but it is tea.  For all yiou skeptical types, just try it. It's pretty damn fool proof.  Now, go figure out how to make the same amount of ale. btw. I would not recommend drinking it though, Zalanthions can eat raw meat sitting in a backpack for a month, we can't.

[O]

Not only is tea rehydrating, it also raises your body temperature causing you to sweat a bit. As this evaporates, it cools your skin down and refreshes you.

And as other people have said, water may be rare, but the ability to throw in a few leaves to make what -is- there taste different isn't.

People in hot and water-scarce countries aren't daft....

Tea's a wonderful thing.

[Scarborough]

Sure you can put any old leaf in your water, but that's not -tea-

Um...yes it is.  For those of us that don't drink cut tea, what would you call the herbal stuff, like the yerba mate I love so much? It's still tea even though it doesn't come from the tea plant.  From Dictionary.com:

1. An eastern Asian evergreen shrub or small tree (Camellia sinensis) having fragrant, nodding, cup-shaped white flowers and glossy leaves.
2.  An aromatic, slightly bitter beverage made by steeping tea leaves in boiling water.
3. Any of various beverages, made as by steeping the leaves of certain plants or by extracting an infusion especially from beef.
4. Any of various plants having leaves used to make a tealike beverage.

The argument that tea should be uber-expensive because it uses water makes little sense when you hold the same argument up against ales and harder drinks.  With at least ales, you have to use a great deal of water to create it, some of which has to be evaporated off.  With things like "firebreather" or whisky, you also would use a lot of water and the grains/juices necessary, but you would evaporate off most of the water.  That is a great waste of resources and is a better argument for harder drinks to be more expensive.  Tea should be the same cost as water in whatever region you buy it in, and maybe a few 'sid more due to a couple lousy leaves or roots tossed in for flavor.  

Can the tea snobbery of our modern world be put aside?..I don't care what tea on earth costs or what the rich and famous do with it, or how expensive a pound of exclusive white tea from China costs.  It's not relavent to the game since the plantlife in game isn't the same as earth plants.  If some gamers are disturbed by the loose usage of the term "tea", you could easily substitute a more ambiguous term for flavored water during your playtime:  tincture or infusion

[path]

I've always thought tea was already a little over-expensive, though not so much in Tuluk, since, perhaps because of the tribal cultures, it's more in style there.

For those of you who have not made or tried suntea, it's wonderful. You don't lose any water making it and there's something really special about how the heat of the sun releases the flavor into the water. Mint is my favorite to make in this way. It's -super- easy. Try it out. Then get back to me.  :wink:

[Scarborough]

Path, yes I always thought sun tea tasted better too, and I've often wondered why.  Someone else mentioned boiling removing the oxygen so maybe sun tea has more oxygen in it?  I think just letting the water sit lets some of the chlorine and other "purifying" chemicals cities put into water get out, and that would surely make tea taste better too.  And despite recommendations of boiling water to make "proper" tea, the flavors always seem to make their way into the water just fine with sun tea.  Good stuff!  

Side note:  Yerba Mate would make retched, awful sun tea though.

[Agent_137]

People are still discussing TEA in this thread?

hahaha.


It's WATER. Flavored with LEAVES, warmed in the SUN.