Global Tea Time

Tea is huge in India. Their style of brewing tea is popular the world over, and is used by many cultures. When I first started researching how people in other countries brewed their tea, I wasn't sure that I would be able to do anything different for India. Chai, spiced tea is popular the world over. While I have made several variations over the course of this blog, I think there is still something different about how they make it in India. There is a lot of variation, and they have many options to achieve a similar outcome. I also knew that there could be a lot of research involved in learning about tea in India, and I don't exactly have the time or patience to spend hours on the internet looking up information. Thankfully, I found a podcast, " Gastropod " that had an episode about tea that talked a lot about the history of tea in India. When the British colonized India, China was still the only country that produced tea. As British settlers started living in India...

I see that the automatic posting function is still not working. This was supposed to post last Sunday when I was traveling in real life, but it didn't. It has been a while since I've gotten away and gone somewhere. It was nice to have a bit of a break. . Today we are traveling to Taiwan , a small island nearly 3 times as long as it is wide, off of the southeast coast of China. The island is volcanic in origin, and about 2/3 of the land is covered in mountains. Spoiler alert, they grow tea on top of those mountains! I was quite amazed to read that maple trees grew there. Now I want to go there, set up a sap shanty, and drink tea. Real tea. Most of the information I first found about tea in Taiwan was about bubble tea. Sigh. They must drink it another way. I did a little more digging, and found the "old fashioned" way to drink tea. Traditionally, oolong tea is made and drunk in Taiwan. From the videos, tea is brewed in small teapots. It is then poured into a tall, n...

I survived the coding exam! 5 hours and 40 minutes with no breaks. Well, you can leave the room to use the restroom if you want to, but the time doesn't stop. This test is designed so that if you hesitate, or need to stop and think about anything at length, you will run out of time. You also get a free retake when you pay to take the test the first time if that tells you anything. It will be another week or so before I know my score, so I get to go back to being a real person again, at least for a bit. One thing that is premium on the mind of people taking this test for the first time is hydration and snacks. You will miss lunch while taking this test. Given the lack of bathroom breaks, you also don't want to drink much before the test, and that is a problem if you like your morning coffee/tea. So I went looking for a solution, maybe some bottled tea to take just in case I needed a hit of caffeine. I didn't like the look of the big bottles of tea, and most of them had som...