Are You Sure?

~ This article first appeared in The Leader-Vindicator newspaper. ~

Prestogeorge is a popular coffee and tea shop in Pittsburgh’s Strip District.  The selection is extraordinary, the bustle is relentless, and the staff is an eclectic mix that fits pretty well with the mental image you’d imagine for a coffee shop in 2023.  They are a no-nonsense bunch.  It took well over a year of consistent weekly visits for anyone behind the counter to acknowledge that I had been there before.

During my trips into the shop I’ve learned by way of experience and observation that tea is far less understood than coffee.  Coffee is most frequently sold by the pound and the size of that measurement can be accurately grasped by almost everyone.  Tea, however, is sold by the ounce.  Herbal tea is generally dense.  Leafy tea is fluffy.  So an ounce of herbal tea usually takes up less space than an ounce of leafy tea, and either way an ounce of anything doesn’t sound like much, which creates a hazard for amateurs who are ordering.

The staff prefers confidence over confusion when they’re collecting orders from customers.  When a worker shouts “WHO’S NEXT?” the appropriate response is a hand wave followed immediately by a concise request delivered forcefully as though the waiting tea lover is constipated and openly frustrated by the situation.  After six months I had worked up the courage to try ordering tea, and with heart racing I moved near the wall of jars for my turn.  Someone shouted at me and in total blind desperation I shouted back “Detox Herbal Tea,” and then, mercifully, instead of naming a quantity I squeaked out “Smallest amount you sell.”  That turned out to be two ounces in a tiny little bag.

Two ounces of anything doesn’t sound like much.  I figured I’d use about half of my little tea pouch to make 1 cup.  The resulting brew was so strong I believed after a sip that I had finally grown a masculine quantity of chest hair (wrong: still only seven) and that my impending detoxification would take place posthumously when the vigorous cleansing characteristics of the herbal pack could really work their magic. 

Clearly I was missing something.  Back to the tea section.

I pretended to be fascinated with a book about cookies and eavesdropped.  Two ounces of tea, a worker explained to a lesser customer who dared to ask, can be expected to make 40 cups of liquid.  Not two.  A little bit of tea goes a long way.  This is especially true of leafy black and green teas.

Now that I am a seasoned tea veteran I can appreciate the suffering people experience when they realize they’ve miscalculated on their order.  It is not at all uncommon to watch someone request twelve or sixteen or twenty ounces of tea only to be stunned when they’re met with resistance from staff: “Are you sure you want that much?”

Of course they want that much.  “I drink a lot of tea.”

That’s good, because when the order is measured out it looks equivalent to the endless rows of leaf piles pushed to the curb in wooded neighborhoods after the trees have dropped their summer garb.  As the pile grows and bags are stuffed my favorite detail is the grim expression of the customer who, having assured everyone within earshot that they knew what they were getting, can no longer back out of the load of Gunpowder Green Tea that they’ll be hauling home to enjoy for the next several decades.

I think the tea section of Prestogeorge is analogous to my life.  I’m always so certain I know what I want, and when I get it I realize that I miscalculated on the quantity. Responsibility grows into a massive pile before my eyes and by the time I understand that I’m in way over my head there is no apparent method to cancel the order without looking like a complete idiot.  And, of course, the situation always seems to take place in the wide open where everyone can see.

How in the heck is a guy supposed to know what he’s getting in to before he gets in to it?  Does everyone else but me possess some innate wisdom that prevents them from ordering way too much of everything?  Did they teach responsibility management in school while I was blowing off the lessons?  These are serious questions that I cannot answer. 

Sometimes it seems like my automatic answer to everything should be no.  That would certainly ease the strain of life.  But then I read some stupid encouragement like “Leap, and the net will appear,” by John Burroughs and I go ahead and toss my carcass over a cliff once again only to learn that “net” can be replaced with “stony gulch” quite easily, although certainly less approachably.  Oh – you know what? I didn’t really want that much…Too late.

I can see the value in apprenticeship.  I wish I had gone to work for lots of different people starting at a young age so that I could see the end before I tried my beginning.  My only bit of comfort is the possibility that my decades of leaping will be a lesson for my kids to start their beginning a little more smoothly and before they have families of their own.  Otherwise, those are some nasty looking rocks at the bottom.