Honest Tea
Pomegranate White Tea with Açaí


This morning started with a whimper. I heated up my water. I prepared my cup with splenda and milk. I reached for a teabag. I knew not to look for Tazo awake, I've been out of that for a while. I've got a container where I put the generic black and orange pekoe teas. Normally it has a mix of Red Rose and store brand tea bags.

I knew we were out of the Red Rose tea. I was surprised when I realized that we were out of all my breakfast teas. My other teas don't mix well with cream and sugar. What to do? What to do?

I made the red tea with the cream and sugar. It was a fair taste, but I was in a pretty bad mood until I could get into work and get some caffeine in me. I'll be picking up some Red Rose on my way home today.

"It has been said that it is quite difficult not to be related to the Queen, and I tend to agree with this, especially as I first said it."
-Miles Kington

Celestial Seasonings
Madagascar Vanilla Red Tea


Today has been a long day. Sleeps calls to me, but I want to stay up just a little longer. I chose a red tea because I feel stressed enough without taking in even more caffeine. This vanilla red is comforting. I don't know if the vanilla is stronger than the concoctions from other tea companies, but the got this one just right.

Good night friends. It will be brighter on the morrow.

"Without surrendering any element of our doctrine, we can be neighborly, we can be helpful, we can be kind and generous."
-GORDON B. HINCKLEY

Bigelow
Earl Grey K-Cup


This is the Earl Grey K-cup. You set the entire cup, unopened, into the machine. It punches a hole in the top and bottom. It forces hot water through the top and drains through the bottom. It makes a cup of tea in less than 30 seconds.

I used to love Earl Grey. I even found one distributor who made it with a double shot of Oil of Bergomot and was drinking that. One day my love of Earl Grey just left. Perhaps I should go back to where my love for it started and see if it can be rekindled -- the Twinings tin.

I broke open another K-cup. The tea is just beautiful sitting in there. Nicely chopped into 1-2mm pieces.

Its not the best cup of Earl Grey I've ever had, but it is certainly the fastest one.

"Many times, Gunnhild has thought about the night she was lying out in the open in the winter mountains with her father, dreaming that the angels lit a star every time she was happy. Now, evening sky has drawn over Gunnhild's life. There are many stars in it."
-Dagfinn Grønoset

Wild Oats
FTGFOP Darjeeling


Darjeeling has been my favorite tea for quite some time. Darjeeling Cuppa has been one of my favorite blogs as well. Based on Darjeeling Cuppa's recommendation I have ordered Thunderbolt Tea's Castleton Muscatel. "A real Darjeeling character oriented tea from Castleton. Darjeeling is famous because of its muscatel character and this is one which boasts of having it – its prominent."

"The Jews’ eternal enemies did not wait for identity cards to be issued in order to set up the mechanisms for their extermination."
-Christodoulos

An unfortunate thing happened today. My Yixing dragon teapot was somewhat damaged. As I understand it a bowl slipped out of my wife's hand and landed on the teapot. The lid to the teapot broke into two pieces. My wife offered to glue it back together for me, but I just don't want it a broken lid.

I will still use the pot. I will set a teacup over the top while the tea stews. When it is done the teapot will just be open.

Perhaps it was too delicate a thing in a busy house of two adults and four children.

"While Labor has the same goals as Netanyahu, their party moves to attain the goals diplomatically. And Arafat is pushing toward this trend. His position has been disastrous for our people. Our misery today is due to Arafat. He is responsible.”
--George Habash

1 teabag of Tazo Chai, 1 teabag of Tazo Awake

in a 16oz Starbucks cup (Grande)

Let me just say -- I am no fan of starbucks. Their latte's and other sugar/cream/coffee mixes are fine, but their coffee is substandard and their inability to stick the right teabag into a cup of hot water is amazing.

I ordered a 16 ounce Tazo Awake. I said Tazo Awake three times. They repeated back to me that I had ordered a Tazo Awake. I felt secure that I had the right drink.

When I got home I saw that they had put in two teabags. I think that is their standard practice for a 16 ounce drink. Unfortunately the tags were two different colors. One of the bags was Tazo Awake and the other was Tazo organic chai. It was not a good mix.

Ah well. My wife enjoyed her Grande Non-Fat Raspberry Latte. That's the real reason we went to Starbucks.

" 1. I believe everything which Eastern Orthodoxy teaches.
2. I am in communion with the Bishop of Rome as the first among the bishops, according to the limits recognized by the Holy Fathers of the East during the first millennium, before the separation."
-Elias Zoghby's Profession of Faith

Mariage Freres

Mariage Freres always makes an inspiring tea. I open the little black tin which holds the tea. Long cuts of green tea with blue cornflower leaves mixed in. The visual appeal is significant. I grab a pinch of the tea. It is smooth, almost silky. The tea has the look, smell and feel of quality. I can't wait.

I put the pinch of Bouddha Bleu into my little dragon teapot. It is has a very light taste and that is exactly what I'm in the mood for today. The teapot, a cow shaped one I use just for heating water, is sounding.

I've poured the boiling water into the little clay dragon. Clay teapots are known to keep the taste of everything you put in them. I can't say that I've ever noticed a difference, but I'm careful not to wash it out with soap all the same.

I've poured it into a white ceramic cup. The bottom clearly labels the cup as Oneida's wicker pattern. It is just bloody perfect. Mariage Freres does such an excellent job with their teas. Light, perfect. The fruity flavors are subdued under the quality of the tea.

"I'm not used to luxuries"
-Dorothy Hennessey

Unknown loose leaf tea

I went to grab my favorite darjeeling and noticed a plastic baggy in the back of my tea stash. I pulled it out and there was exactly one serving in the baggy. I smelled, but didn't recognize the aroma.

I brewed it in my dragon pot. I haven't used it for a bit.

I really hope its tea. Could my seventeen year old have hidden some marijuana in my tea stash? I don't think so. I don't think marijuana looks anything like black tea and this definitely looks like black tea.

It has a tea scent. It has a tea taste. Its very familiar, but I can't recall it.

"Udach' Kuqax*a'a'ch" (A sound that calls people from afar)
-Marie Smith Jones

Celestial Seasonings Brewed Awakenings
Yerba Mate and black tea mix

Just delightful.

"But when you score a superb orange
circle on a purple thought-base
I shake my head and say: hell, what
is this thing called aroha"

.
Hone Tuwhare

Tazo
some sort of berry white tea

I stopped at the Borders bookstore near my house. They serve Tazo teas. I really like the Tazo awake tea, but I was in the mood for something a little lighter. I could just make out that one of the cans contains some sort of berry white tea. Brambleberry? Tazoberry? I don't know.

It was light, it was fruity and it was just the thing to bring me up from a cold, rainy winter day. I love that they use loose leaf tea. I wish the teabags they place them into were unbleached. I do wish I could let it stew for longer. They place a large amount of tea into that bag and it can quickly make a cup too strong. Instead I take it right over to the condiments counter, pull it out and dump the bag in the garbage.

It was a good tea. Maybe next time I will stop to ask what it was.

"In the past we always assumed that unless you were making the patient really sick, flooding the body with these really toxic chemotherapies, the treatment wasn't working. Before, patients were really afraid of these treatments. With these angiogenic drugs, you have none of that."

.
Judah Folkman

Ti Kwan Yin

It is a melancholy day. My Uncle Paul died today. I spoke with his wife and adult children for a little bit. They're taking it well, everyone is more concerned for how the grandkids fare. My cousin said, "I know he had to go sometime, but he was superman. He was my dad. I was Daddy's girl. I expected him to down in a car wreck, not like this." He died surrounded by family. That's what I want when I die. I want one last moment with my loved ones.

I wish I had my Lapsang Souchong here. My uncle Paul smoked a Pipe. Lapsang is the closest thing to tobacco that I use. The ti kwan yin is fitting as well, but its not the same. Perhaps I'll make a red tea and mix in some vanilla.

This isn't to say that he and I were particularly close. Life brought me to Europe, Australia and eventually to Washington State. It brought him to the tri-state area of Kentucky. Perhaps I feel a little guilty about leaving home. I don't know. I'll figure it out tomorrow or the next day.

"I know that he who speaks in my poems is a fictional character, who tries in vain to imitate me, who even tries to pass for me by disguising himself in my clothes. Irony allows me to mark the distance from me to him. Sometimes he also tries to deceive me, but he never succeeds; I know that his truth is the reverse of my lie, and I treat him like one of those dolls in black magic, which the sorcerers stick with pins in order to cause pain in their enemies. What happens is that instead of sticking pins in him, I pull them out."


Ángel González

Ty-Phoo
Black Tea

This is the first tea that I came to truly appreciate. I tried it and came to love it during the 2 1/2 years that I lived in Brechin, Scotland. It was the cure for my too common hangover. It warmed me while I waited for my flat to warm up. It made the bad times better.

I haven't tried Ty-Phoo again for years. It was such a good tea in Scotland, but it was absolutely ordinary when I tried it in Florida. I don't know if it is a difference in the water, if the tea had been sitting in the box too long or something totally different. Whatever the cause, it wasn't the tea I had come to appreciate in Scotland.

Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.

-Tyler Durder of FightClub (via Wikiquote)