I’ve been a coffee drinker since I was 19, but have recently acquired a taste for this particular tea, as well, which is shown in the picture above, which I “screenshotted” from Amazon. After guzzling it for several weeks, I decided to look up reviews of it, and found them at (where else?) http://www.teacritic.com. I then registered, at that website, so that I could add my own, raving, review. It’s currently the top comment on this page: https://www.teacritic.com/tea/779/tension-tamer.html. You don’t have to follow that link to see my review, though, since I took a screenshot of it for this blog-post. (You can click on it to make it bigger.)

What I didn’t put in the review, though, was my method of preparing this tea, for fear I’d be branded a tea-heretic, on the tea-critic website. I will, however, describe my method here. I get a large mug — 710 mL (that’s 24 fluid ounces, for most Americans), and drop two teabags in the empty mug. I then fill the mug with cold tap water, stick it in the microwave, and “nuke” it for three minutes. As soon as I can drink it without burning myself, I guzzle it (the way I used to guzzle beer), throw two more teabags on top of the used two bags, fill it with water, and microwave it again. After drinking this four-teabag tea, I throw away all four teabags before starting the process over from the beginning. I don’t do this at work, for I don’t have time for all of that while teaching, but I do it, on “repeat,” when I’m at home, before or after work, on the weekends, and on vacation. (Right now, it’s “Fall Break” vacation in my school district, so I’ve been doing this all day.)

I am aware that you’re “supposed to” make tea by boiling water in a kettle, and then pouring the boiling water over the teabags in a proper tea cup, but (A) I don’t have the patience for that, for my way is faster, and (B) I get a kick out of doing things my own way, rather than the “supposed to” way. Also, (C) I’m not British.

Three cheers for Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer Tea! (No, they didn’t pay me to write this — it’s an unpaid advertisement.)