Monks, Monkeys and Tea

I went to the mall today with my friend, Carisa. She wanted to hit a tea shop to get a present for her daughter.

I had never been to this shop before. Quite frankly, I had never even noticed the shop before.

I could've sworn it was an Aveda.

We were greeted at the door by someone offering me Youthberry tea.

Why did he offer ME the Youthberry tea?

Not that I'm sensitive or anything.

My birthday is next week.

But Carisa's is THIS weekend.

That's sooner.

Sooo…

Why did he offer ME the Youthberry tea?

He said something about antioxidants and blah blah blah…

it was good…REALLY good.

I decided to walk into the store.

I was walked around by a sweet nervous guy who was new and still being trained by a knowledgeable tall thin guy with bangs in his eyes and multiple studs in his lip/mouth area.

The studs were somehow attached by loops over top of his bottom lip.

It compromised the way he said certain words.

The whole studs attached by loops over top of his bottom lip.

He directed me to a white oolong tea that was called Monkey Oolong.

He didn't give me time to ask.

It is called "Monkey" Oolong because monks (ohhhh) trained monkeys (wait) to climb to the tops of trees to get the leaves from the upper branches. 

So.

Many.

Questions.

But the only one that came out was,

"And these monkeys, they actually came back with the leaves?"

Carisa walked up and wondered why I was ALL OF THE SUDDEN suspicious of monkeys being capable of bringing back leaves they were trained to pick.

I simply said, "Planet of the Apes. They don't like being told what to do."

Not. Happy. 

I may or may not have shoved my fist in the air.

Tall stud mouth guy thought that was funny.

But then he got all serious and touched my arm gently to tell me that monkeys no longer pick the leaves so as not to potentially violate animal rights laws. 

I decided to let him tell me more about tea 

even though calling it Monkey Oolong seemed like a 

big fat lie now.

He told me they have the rarest green tea made.

Don't tell me that and not tell me why it is so rare.

After the monkeys, I was suspicious.

He pulled this huge tin off a shelf and took the lid off and shoved the tin towards me so I could give it a good sniff.

Before I could do so, he started waving the lid towards me wafting the smell towards me.

Is this a thing? 

Like swirling your wine in its glass?

 Or sniffing the cork? 

I was quite the adult.

I didn't laugh.

Or shoot something out of my nose into the $20 a pound green tea from Japan that has to grow in the shade.

He wanted to know if I could smell the vegetative state of it.

"What did you say?"

He repeated himself but the word vegetative was a challenge for the whole studs attached by loops over top of his bottom lip.

When I finally realized what he had been saying, 

I finally realized what he had been saying.

Wait, aren't ALL tea leaves vegetation? So therefore, vegetative?

Many more tea samples later, I was reeling from the caffeine and lack of food, and decided to buy nothing.

But I am DEFINITELY bringing Monte to this place. 

He was just saying the other night that there is nothing like tea picked by monkeys that were trained by monks.

Or not.