Tried it? 
I have poor impulse control when it comes to… well, everything. When i’m working at home, I can’t just make half a pot of coffee. What if my husband bogarts it? What if I’m not angry and paranoid enough after I drink it all myself? At the same time, I can’t just give up caffeine. That would be silly.
My brother-in-law gave up coffee for some reason a few years ago and switched to green tea. You sneaky bastard, I thought at the time; you can get your fix whilst hiding behind the pretense of reaping the myriad benefits of all that green tea has to offer. On the other hand, everyone was doing it. I didn’t want to jump on the whole green tea bandwagon only because the other kids were doing it. It just wasn’t pretentious enough…
I saw white tea on a shelf at Dominion a while ago and knew I had to try it. I, who grew up in Oshawa, the target-audience poster-town for Van Halen (spokesmetalband of the “Crystal Pepsi” generation), wanted to get me some invisible-tea action. The clearer the product, the better the quality, right? I mean, look at Evian Mist.
So for the past few years, between regret-soaked lost weekends of coffee-infused iniquity, I’ve been drinking white tea. I couldn’t get the Touch tea from Dominion after a while, so I halfheartedly flirted with other brands off and on until I rediscovered the glory that is the 100-count tea cube at my local Shoppers Drug Mart. When it comes to other brands, I can’t stress this enough: don’t buy Lipton white tea. Unless you’re interested in buying white tea and ending up with a big old pot of apricot-flavoured crap. And if you do, I won’t judge you — just don’t try to foist it off on me when I come to visit.
According to white tea enthusiasts, you’re supposed to steep white tea for 30-40 seconds in fresh, hot (not boiling) water. As you’re likely to have deduced from the photos, I am not so meticulous. I just bung a bag in my Totoro mug and chuck some old, boiled kettle water in there before I wander off and forget it for a quarter of an hour. If I’m especially observant, I’ll find it in a state of delicate golden splendour, with a soft and refreshing taste; usually, however, it ends up looking like weak orange pekoe, and its lukewarm refreshment is not so life-altering.
I don’t care — it has more polyphenols than green tea, the caffeine high is subtler and less jarring than with coffee, and the feeling of smug self-satisfaction that comes from knowing I paid less than six bucks for 100 bags of organic tea whilst my arty-farty neighbors sniff enviously in my direction more than makes up for my lack of mad brewing skills. And in the immortal words of Sammy Hagar:
It’s what’s happening
Right here and now
Right now, it’s right now
Oh!
Tell me, what are ya waitin’ for?
Try This Thing 
I’m losing belief in Lipton after I realized the ‘clear green’ that accompanies my infused water is actually more like an inferiorly-oxidised yellow or golden, and as such is unlikely to consecrate the self-presumed health effects. So much for cheap, mass teabagging… *sigh*