How Do they Drink it?

The people of China like their tea and they drink it everywhere and at anytime. They don't however, drink much iced tea and they certainly don't put sugar in it. They drink black tea, green tea, red tea and yellow tea. But the thing that gets me is that they don't strain the tea. At meetings I've been presented with cups of steaming water that look as if the scrapings from the bottom of a lawn mower have been dumped in the cup. Twigs, acorns, grass clippings and leaves. I watch as my hosts lift the cups and manage somehow to drink the infusion without choking on the detritus. I've watched closely to see how they manage to strain out the solid matter but I have yet to solve the puzzle. I try it and I end up with leaves and twigs covering my teeth and lips.

Taxi drivers all have a tall bottle of tea hanging next to them as they drive. The clear bottles reveal a wide variety of tea preferences - usually an unsightly sloshing mess of leaves in brown water. It reminds me of a spittoon but last week I noticed the driver taking me in to work was drinking from a tall glass that looked like a lavalamp. There were elongated bright red blobs floating languidly in oil. For a moment I thought it really was a lavalamp, and I began to feel contemplative as my eyes followed the red blobs floating up and down in the liquid - but then the driver picked it up and drank it.