.jpg)
In my last post I vowed to force my visiting family (all from central PA) to put down the teabag and pick up a mug of perfectly steeped loose-leaf tea. Enter the Celestial Seasonings Tent Sale. What started out as a guided tour through a popular tea factory turned into a teabag feeding frenzy. Never have I been so bamboozled in my entire life. It was a crushing blow this tent sale. Boxes of any flavor you want for a buck. One dollar. I wasn't there, but I heard some little kids were trampled. Even my mother, who appreciates a good bargain, had to step aside while the rest of the family filled shopping bag after shopping bag with flavors of tea they've never even heard of. I didn't stand a chance. It was over before it began.
What this frustrating experience did help me remember was that converting the mainstream tea-drinking public into loose-leaf connoisseurs isn't going to happen over night. Certainly not over night in my apartment where my youngest visitor built a three-room fort out of all the Celestial Seasonings tea boxes. The first thing you must do when changing someone's habit is to grab their attention and the aftermath of this tent sale was like herding cats. So I decided to flee and live to fight another day. Soon they will tire of all that bagged tea and the excitement will wear off. Enter Bolder Breakfast, Iced Mango Tango and Green Roasted Mint.
What this frustrating experience did help me remember was that converting the mainstream tea-drinking public into loose-leaf connoisseurs isn't going to happen over night. Certainly not over night in my apartment where my youngest visitor built a three-room fort out of all the Celestial Seasonings tea boxes. The first thing you must do when changing someone's habit is to grab their attention and the aftermath of this tent sale was like herding cats. So I decided to flee and live to fight another day. Soon they will tire of all that bagged tea and the excitement will wear off. Enter Bolder Breakfast, Iced Mango Tango and Green Roasted Mint.
photo from www.cbc.ca
Ah, alas. Well, you do have to remember that Celestial Seasonings have marketed themselves very well, with their boxes in pretty much every grocery store in the U.S. And their specialty tea (as distinct from connoisseur-level tea) is what many people think of when they want to drink the "good stuff."
ReplyDeleteBut I'm convinced that Americans are like everyone else on the planet; namely, they don't want to miss out on a good thing. So if they find out how good tea can be, they will want to drink it.