Teffee

We have one French press in our home. Half of us use it for coffee and half of us use it for tea, and you prescients in the audience know where this is going next. A spectrum of hot morning beverage was destined the moment I looked at the press and thought, "Hm, I can probably use this to make tea, too. What's the worse that could happen?"

I've learned many lessons in life, but this is probably the bitterest. And I don't just mean figurative bitterness. I mean literal bitterness as well, very literal bitterness, the bitterness of taking a mouthful of tea and realizing that you have made a terrible mistake.

That you have grafted together two things that were never intended, by man or by god, to be one.

That the press was not properly de-coffeed before you added your loose-leaf tea and set it to boil, and now you have something that is not tea, not coffee, but some strange union of the two in your mouth.

It actually wasn't that bad, once I got past the initial impression. The taste was layered so that examining it there in my pajamas felt like staging an archaeological dig. First, the layer of dark coffee. Second, tucked just underneath that, the strong, sweet flavor of herbal tea. Third, the layer of cream. These spread over my senses like some stern cosmic reminder to thoroughly wash and prep all equipment before their use. And, after all, the cup fulfilled its purpose: I was very much awake.

Strangely enough, I hadn't even seen a stray leaf in the press. The tea just snuck in there like some silent and determind ghost, the kind of ghost that likes to haunt cups of coffee and dreary Massachusetts mornings. I had been tricked by the appearance of harmless tealessness.

But if Firefly has taught me anything, it is that every problem is an opportunity in disguise. This day has been my opportunity to add a third hot morning drink to my previous two and complete this trio: coffee, tea, and teffee reporting for duty, ma'am.

My mother and brother both tried some of my newest discovery and told me to never make it again, but I'm not so eager to let teffee fade back into the nightosphere from whence it came. In fact, I'm curious now about what other things I can blend together.

Who knows? Maybe I can make it work. Maybe teffee and my tongue will yet be friends. They say that optimism is key, and I could use another friend.

Welcome to the collection, teffee.

#teffee