Lemony

I made up some of my Pad Thai again and wanted a green tea blend to go with it. I decided to use the lemongrass I had bought from Tavalon with Pingshui and Dragonwell teas from EnjoyingTea.com. I might have used a bit more of the lemongrass than I needed but it had a very pleasant, lemony flavor that went wonderfully with the Pad Thai.

A Peachy Morning

This morning I decided to try the Plum Peach Oolong I had designed with Design A Tea. It was absolutely lovely the way you could pick out each flavor and still have them meld together into a lovely whole. At one point I found myself thinking "Is this tea or is this nectar?" it was so good!

And I have found another tea that goes well with the spiced blackberry peach jam! Happy day!

Spicy Rose

Today I woke up to a light blanket of snow covering the trees and ground and decided to stick with chai again. I chose EnjoyingTea.com's Bangalore Rose Chai as a base and added Rosebud Black and Jasmine Yin Hao from Stash as well as my usual spices. I absolutely love the deep red that the Bangalore steeps to and the opaque peach-orange that results from adding milk is lovely as well. I should try brewing this the traditional way sometime.

Cherry Blossom

So for lunch guess what I had. If you thought "breakfast" go get yourself a cookie. Maybe I should get a cookie too after I write this... Anyway, I decided to have a nice floral green blend and chose the Cherry Rose Kyoto Sencha and Jasmine Dragon Pearls from EnjoyingTea.com. It was so naturally sweet that I almost didn't even have to put sugar in which is saying a lot from a sugar-lover like myself! I was eating French toast with syrup though so if I hadn't added the sugar the flavor would have been overwhelmed. I didn't add much though.

Chocolate Seduction

So this morning I decided to give the China Seduction from Design A Tea another try. I measured out two heaping teaspoons, double what I had used before, and as I was doing so I realized that only about a third of the mix was tea leaves. The other two thirds were chocolate nibs and rose petals respectively. Perhaps that was the cause of the weak taste last time.

After steeping the liquor was a murky red-brown. Very murky, I could hardly make out where the spoon touched the bottom of the tea cup and I use a small cup.

First sip...WOW! Now THAT is CHOCOLATE! Milky smooth but with a slight dark coco bitterness. It actually tastes a lot like the jasmine-infused chocolates that I have. I'll have to try blending this with some jasmine tea at some point.

It also went marvelously with the bagel I had spread with spiced blackberry peach jam!

A little something before bed

I wanted to have some tea before bed but I also didn't want anything with caffeine in it since my five month old refuses formula and I don't want to risk having her up half the night. Enter the fruit melanges I bout from Old Wilmington Tea Co. I blended the Berries n' Cream and Harvest and added a few cloves (love cloves, love love love) for a blend that was deliciously tart, creamy, fruity, and spiced all at once.

Revisiting an old favorite

Blasted weather still hasn't warmed back up yet. I needed a tea this morning that could warm me up so I chose Stash's Kashmiri Chai Green Tea and used two bags in my tetsubin for extra strength. Loaded up with lots of milk and sugar it was smooth and silky with just the amount of spice I needed to start my day. I was enjoying my tea so much I nearly forgot to eat my banana bread!

Headed South

So, yesterday afternoon I had gotten everything set up so I could make an omlet for lunch, including cracking the eggs into a bowl. Between one thing and another I ended up not getting any further than that on the lunch front. So this morning I decided to finish that omlet idea. I topped it with my black bean salsa and extra cheese and had a couple slices of banana bread as well.

Seeing how I seemed to be heading south for breakfast I decided to have some of EnjoyingTea.com's Roasted Mate Chai, rounded the flavor out with some Winey Keemum, and added my usual spice blend. I added a bit more nutmeg than usual though which gave the tea a pleasantly warm bite that complimented the salsa and the banana bread nicely.

Vanilla Rose Chai

Today dawned cloudy and chill so I decided to return to spiced black tea for the morning. I chose Stash's Rosebud black blended with the Vanilla Chai from EnjoyingTea.com and added my usual spice blend. I think it needed a bit more rose in there. I'll have to try that after our roses have bloomed and I've had the chance to dry the petals. Anyway, it was definitely what I needed this morning. And it even went well with the spiced blackberry-peach jam I had on my bagel, which I find amazing because usually the spices in the jam overpower the spices in the tea. While there was a bit of that going on the vanilla and rose flavor notes complimented the jam so well that it was totally forgivable.

Harvest in Spring

This afternoon I decided to try the Harvest fruit melange I got from Old Wilmington Tea Co. I must figure out what kind of cinnamon these companies use. The look and aroma is completely different from what you can get at the supermarket.

The liquor on this is a deep red in a mug, in a cup that holds less liquid it's more of a dark rose. It tastes a bit thin but the flavor fills out if you roll it around in your mouth…kind of like eating freeze-dried apple bits. There’s a little bit of a tang that saves this from being too light and sweet, definitely a good just-before-bed tea.

Raspberry Takeover

So I decided to try one of the flavors I made from Design A Tea, the Chocolate Raspberry with a black tea base. There was definitely a strong raspberry note! The chocolate, sadly, seemed to be in hiding. The leaves smelled strongly of chocolate, the liquor smelled strongly of chocolate, but the taste just wasn't there. So, strike chocolate from my list of flavors to use but at least the raspberry has potential!