Skinny wrote:

> Imagine, if you will, that you have a tea pot, with a bunch of leaves --
> enough to make a strong cup o' green tea -- and sufficient hot water for
> one cup of hot, steaming, delicious tea. So now we have leaves -- some
> spent, say, from last night's tea, and some new -- floating in hot
> water. Now imagine that through some dark magic, /all/ the water had
> been spirited away and replaced with water-clear slime with the
> consistency of mucus. Sorry -- I can't think of a better way to say it.
> So when you go to pour the tea, it /drools/ out, and forms a string when
> when you turn the pot upright to stop the flow.
>
> It's very disturbing. Now taste it, take a sip.

No. I will not taste it. You taste it. I have tasted braised
jellyfish, fish-gut omelettes, head cheese, "tripa", stewed "specialty
of the house" unspecified meat in a no-menu restaurant far, far from
the FDA, my wife's Aunt Ruth's cooking (she has two Aunt Ruths, so I'm
safe - sort of; if you're reading this, Ruth, I don't mean you, I mean
the other one), "peanut butter and I'm not quite sure" at the end of a
six-day backpacking trip, and something my old housemate Neal once
served me when I wasn't sober enough to refuse.

Yet I have my standards, which fall short of disturbing drooling mucus
and anything produced by Kraft. Have you asked them whether they are
interested in it, by the way? With enough sugar, benzoic acid and
diacetyl it might be a suitable niche product.

Obtea: a student of mine is visiting Shanghai and Tientsin (spelled
arbitrarily - I mean the Guangzhou city just across the border from
Hong Kong) in June, which is a good month. I gladly welcome any
suggestions for good trustworthy places for her to buy tea. I'll
probably ask again in May.

Rick.