24 Hours Without Tea

In my haste to leave on a flight to China, in the middle of fretting over whether security would confiscate my thermos of tea I usually carry around and whether they will force me to chug a searing hot Phoenix oolong, I forgot to bring my usual travel size packs of tea. I boarded the plane with no tea in my possession.

By around 5 hours, I had requested no fewer than 6 cups of black tea from the Cathay Pacific staff. Each cup getting progressively stronger and worse tasting, I switched to green tea. It was a vague in-between of genmaicha and some kind of greenish tasting tea. No problem, it was merely insipid. Another 10 or so cups later, I keep kicking myself: why did I forget my tea?

By the time we were landing, I consoled myself. There were no good movies on the flight, but there were no screaming babies either. It could be worse. I could have been served Dunkin Donuts ‘fine tea’ like last time on Jetblue. Cathay Pacific is still a good airline.

24 hours after landing, I still haven’t had a decent cup of tea. Yes, I am in China.