Tea Bags

When it's cold and wet out, Bear and I like to spend our weekend afternoons heading over to Portland's east side in search of a good bowl of Pho. I'm sure that most everyone reading this is familiar with Pho, but in case you're not, it's a Vietnamese beef and noodle soup that's the perfect addition to a cold day and a great way to end a night out. Even if you don't care for most Asian foods, you'll probably enjoy Pho, it's really savory and a lot like the comfort foods you grew up with.

On this particular day, we found a great Pho place that was next to a giant Asian market. As we needed a few things, we decided to stop in and take a look around. Whether here or abroad, I love foreign markets. I think they're a great insight into how most of the world lives- and they'll quickly make you realize why Americans are so fat (the rest of the world doesn't subsist on Hot Pockets, who knew?).

Well, we were stocking up on green tea, when this caught my eye:

noni tea

I don't know if it was the word tea bag or the poorly shopped illustration, but I giggled. I then showed Bear, who also giggled. I didn't know what this was, but I simply had to try it.

Turns out that this is something called noni tea (hence the tea bags). A few seconds on Wikipedia revealed that noni is some type of plant that grows in Hawaii and Asia that has a large variety of medicinal purposes...or at least people use it as a folk remedy.

noni tea brewing

Sugar is possible...

Okay, so we're looking at morinda tea with some sweet herb and the possibility of sugar after first imbuing in hot water.

I followed the instructions and ended up with this:

cup of morinda tea

The tea came in standard tea bags just like any other tea. So I imbued it in hot water, let it stand, and ended up with noni tea.

In terms of taste, it's just like any other 'healthy' herbal tea. There's definitely an earthy flavor that's followed by a sweet after taste. It's a lot like a really pungent green tea, only without the strong tea flavor. I obviously don't know how to describe food.

But I am enjoying a mug as I write this, so it won't go to waste. I guess it's a good reminder that no matter how scrotum tightening the package, the contents might be good...

October 27, 2008