Heres the transcript of my recent communication to Bigelow, inspired by a
sampling of their atrocious I Love Lemon Herb Tea.

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to complain about the performance of one of your products, to
wit: Bigelow I Love Lemon Herb Tea. Having recently sampled said item in a
culinary context, I am convinced that it is the most unappealing, tasteless, and
unprofessional tea I have ever encountered.

Each teabag is enveloped in a package that reads A year-round valentine
for everyone who really loves lemon. Well, I happen to be an ardent
enthusiast for that particular flavor, and I can assure you that this alleged
tea tastes less like lemon than most electric home appliances. The only way
this substance could be considered a year-round valentine is by taking the
meaning of valentine as a heart, which, if left out in the open for a
year, would be encrusted with congealed blood and covered with small,
creeping insects.

This tea breaks all previously-conceived boundaries of the concept bland. It
invokes in the drinker a level of excitement usually associated with shoelace
collections or counting ones own armpit hairs. I notice that the tea is
classified as as Herb Tea rather than an Herbal Tea, and that Herb has
traditionally been a name denoting banal, tedious people. Another tumbler of
the Bigelow corporate lock falls into place.

The outer wrapper of the teabag – whose taste may be compared favorably to
that of the tea itself – is colored yellow. One may conjecture that this
represents some twisted attempt to conjure associations with other objects
that R.C. Bigelow, Inc. regards as the paradigm of tastiness, such as fire
hydrants, old math textbooks, and yield signs. A quick glance at the
packages of some of your other herbal tea products confirms our suspicions.
One tea package depicts a small cat, playfully clawing a ball or mouse or
small child, while your propagandistic legend assures us the paragon of
beverages is contained within. What sort of baldfaced nonsequitor is this?
The only thing a cat and tea have in common is that one dislikes being
immersed in the other. Clearly, your marketing skills are equivalent to your
prowess at teamaking, which is probably on level with the cats.

In short, I find I Love Lemon Herb Tea a thoroughly detestable product, and
recommend changing its name to I Used To Love Lemon Until I Drank This Herb
Tea. In view of its exceeding worthlessness as a viable drink, it is difficult
not to inductively extend this condemnation to include the entire product line
of R.C. Bigelow, Inc. However, if I were sent a free sample of each of your
other tea products, I might be able to constrain my loathing to this
particular specimen, and not gallop through the streets of Pittsburgh howling
obscenities about your company and your activities, which, as you know, it
exceedingly deleterious to healthy public relations.

Sincerely,

Michael Shapiro

They responded promptly, within a week:

Dear Mr. Shapiro:

I must say your letter was one of the more descriptive letters we have
received. It is always unfortunate when ever we have a dissatisfied consumer
and normally we will send them free coupons in order to try and better
satisfy their needs with many of our other products. However, in your case I
feel you have reached a point of no return. My only recommendation to you is
try Celestial Seasonings, they offer a very nice lemon tea. Perhaps they will
have better luck pleasing you.

Thank you for taking the time to share with us your tremendous displeasure.
We continually try to improve our products, and each letter does mean a great
deal to us.

Sincerely,

Ms. Bigelow
Operations Manager

* * * *

The letter was accompanied by a generous portion of No Tea. I was rather
hoping that theyd send me a sample.

The irony is that Im actually very fond of Bigelow tea products. I really
just wanted to see what theyd say.