The smoke rolls along the low ceiling and pours up into the night - a reverse waterfall - like when the kettle boils beneath the plate cupboard.

The main thing that separates specialty teas from Lipton is that specialty tea is single origin, whereas Lipton is blended from two to three different crops.

Fifteen years ago the Tea Council was looking at a very stagnant market and they realized that something needed to be done to stimulate interest.

It's the processing that changes the tea.

Tea has nothing to do with being hungry," said Nimrod. "For Englishmen, it is like a canonical hour. And almost as much of an important ritual as the tea ceremony in Japan. Except for one thing. With tea, in Japan, recognition is given that every human encounter is a singular occasion which can, and will, never recur again exactly. Thus every aspect of tea must be savored for what it gives the participants. But in England, the significance occurs in the fact that teas is always the same, and will always recur again and again, exactly . For how is the endurance of a great civilization to be measured?

Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence.