2024-03-05: hong kong milk tea

once or twice a year, i do a big tea order from a tea blender here in canada. one of my friends/coworkers likes genmaicha, and the blender has an excellent one, so i always toss a package of that on to my order and give it to him.

he did an order a little while ago from a local tea store, and gave me a couple of teas to try. the first was a dark chocolate black tea, which was nice; and then a hong kong milk tea.

i didn't start drinking tea until i was living alone, with a troubled roommate in a rented townhouse in the suburbs of a city far away from my lover and family almost two decades ago. before that, tea was something i tried to drink but couldn't, after church on sundays or at family events. turns out the key was being really broke, with tea being really cheap. i used to buy big packages of pc earl grey tea, the box of $200+, and i drank so much of it that i associate it with that period of my life, and even the smell of bergamot now brings me back.

but other teas are fine. the milk tea he got me is loose leaf, and smells faintly creamy and floral. it's very different from the big malty breakfast teas i usually drink. i should stop by that tea store sometime, see what else they have.

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