Tea snob

I'm definitely a tea person and even though I love coffee, I wouldn't as much as blink to give it up if I ever had to choose between the two. It's almost a religion.

Coming from a village small town tea was considered something you drink when you're sick. Not a surprising attitude considering other disgusting things you have to put in your mouth when you're sick. The tea I had at that time was tasteless yet colourful water with somehow nice smell. Even when it happened to have a taste, it was mainly because of the sugar.

But then I moved and my flatmate introduced me to the idea that not all tea comes in a bag so I discovered great tasting teas. It was a matter of cups before I became a tea addict. Fruit teas, green teas, spiced black teas, white teas, red teas it was just getting better and better. I admit, I got spoiled to the level of becoming a tea snob.

In the summer I make my own iced tea and I love experimenting with fresh ingredient teas, e.g. ginger, lemon-grass, lime and honey. I noticed being genuinely frustrated when ordering tea and getting it done all wrong. I'll survive lousy coffee but don't mess with my tea!

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Supposedly Ireland and England have a high tea culture, some kinda of tea aristocracy so of course my hopes were high. Don't hold your breath. When the question: "Would you like some tea?" is not followed by "What kind?" you know you're in the black zone: no matter what time of day, you'll always get different versions of black tea. I like black tea, but 10 times a day? I don't know the tea drinking cultures well enough to know whether they get offended if you ask for a different kind of tea. Do you?

Three books everyone should read

For those ten readers of my blog I want to first apologise for not writing. My absence is party related to lack of time but mostly to reading a lot. While reading things "I have to" I actually came across some extremely interesting books that I think everyone should read.

Especially this three jewels:

Erich Fromm's: Esacape from Freedom is an excellent analysis on historical development of individual/collective identities and reasons for rise of the totalitarian ideologies. It can also give you amazing tools to evaluate your own life.

Cordelia Fine's: Delusions of Gender is showing how gender is being constructed from the perspective of neuroscience using hard evidence. After reading this you might change your mind on how you see men and women.

Douglas Adams's: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - because it's a seriously hilarious & genius adventure that can give you a taste of one thing we should never forget - to have fun.

And since I'm a curious person and always in search of a new good reading, I'd like to ask 3 people for which I know (or assume) they love books/reading to do the same.

So Fairy, Hirkani and Alcessa, please share 3 books you think everyone should read. There's no such thing as too many book recommendations :)