Tea Time in St. Louis, Missouri

If accidents didn’t happen the world would be much different than it is today. This applies to scientific discoveries as well as things that we take for granted in everyday life. Do you think that someone actually planned to squeeze milk out of the udder of an animal and then drink it? Remember the story of Kaldi, the sheepherder who discovered coffee? Well, tea may even go farther back that that. Legend has it that about 5,000 years ago in ancient China, the emperor Shen Nung discovered that boiled water was healthier to drink than the stuff that came out of the river. One day while traveling, he and his court stopped to rest. As customary, his servants began to boil the water to drink. Some leaves from a nearby bush fell into the water, creating a brown infusion. Curious, the emperor tasted the liquid and found it quite refreshing, and the rest as they say is history. It wasn’t until 1560 when tea finally made its way to Europe. Besides containing half the caffeine of coffee, tea is rich in antioxidants, may help prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease, and has a natural form of fluoride that may prevent tooth decay.

Tea was one of the first imports into the Colonies. (Remember the Boston Tea Party?) It has always been a popular drink in the United States, but was outpaced by coffee as the drink of choice. Twenty years ago about the only thing you could find in the tea aisle was some variation of black tea. Today shoppers can find dozens of conventional and specialty teas. Bottled, ready-to-drink teas that contain natural flavors, but no sugar, like The Republic of Tea and Ito En are popping up on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus. In 1990 annual tea sales were at about $1 billion, in 2003 that number rose to over $5 billion. Here are a few of my favorite places to get a good cup of tea in the St. Louis, Missouri area: