TEA PARTY!

No, I'm not referring to the patriotic East Coast revolutionaries of the 18th century, or the right-wing nut jobs claiming to be their 21st-century counterparts. I'm talking about tea. Loose-leaf tea: black, green, rooibos, oolong, you name it.

I've always been a fan of tea, but having grown up on the iced, unsweetened, Lipton variety, the demonstration and info session I attended during a food tour this summer literally blew my mind. The tour, which started in Chicago's Gold Coast and wound its way through Old Town up to Lincoln Park, took us into a small tea shop just north of the Viagra Triangle.

We each received a 20-ounce cup of an iced cranberry and mango green tea to sip while we listened to the tea guy's spiel. The tea was tasty and the guy was quite knowledgeable... long story short, I fell for his sales pitch... hook, line, and sinker.

First he showed us the contents of a typical tea bag, which is often just tea dust, the disintegrated remnants of crumbled-up tea leaves. Boo! Then he showed us a loose-leaf tea bag, and then loose-leaf tea that had been brewed in a metal tea ball. Which was better than tea dust, but (as I soon learned) still left much to be desired. Then he whipped out a contraption that looked like infomercial fare but sounded divine.

Loose-leaf tea is hard core, and only die-hards are willing to make the effort, right? Not anymore! This little doo-dad demystified loose-leaf tea for me and my fellow foodies-for-a-day. The tea leaves are measured into the plastic pitcher, and the hot water is poured in on top of that. Once brewed to the desired strength, the pitcher is set on top of a tea cup or mug, and the ball bearings on the bottom of the whatsit allow the steeped water to filter down through a sieve and into the cup, while all of the leaves remain inside of the thingie. Cool!

A side-by-side comparison of the tea leaves from the mesh ball and the tea leaves in the nifty pitcher was astounding; the leaves in the pitcher were free to rehydrate to their former size, which was nearly three times the size of the leaves in the ball and the bag. And according to tea guy, these vessels acted as tea "prisons" and wouldn't allow the tea to reach its full brewing potential. This antiquated and barbaric method of brewing loose-leaf teas also prohibited it from achieving its full flavor potential, too.

It wasn't long before I joined in the chants of "free the tea!" and, once the tour was over and we were free to shop, we returned to the Gold Coast and each bought the requisite amount of tea that allowed us to use our 75% off coupon on a thing-a-ma-jig of our very own. I am confident that this was money well spent; I have brewed more loose-leaf tea this summer since, well, EVER. I guess I am officially a card-carrying member of the loose-leaf tea party!