Global Tea Time

This tea was blended to represent South america, especially Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. I have certainly seen reference to yerba mate with regard to South America. I remember seeing a video talking about laying out on Ipanema beach and getting iced yerba mate tea with lemon juice. I can't say that I know a lot about yerba mate because I haven't gotten to the parts of the world where people drink it. It is not from a tea plant, but it does have a lot of caffeine in it. I also know that it gets bitter if it is not brewed correctly. This blend has green tea and lemon added to it. My nose was greeted with a light, citrus scent when I opened the bag. I figured that I could use an imaginary day at the beach considering that we got our first big winter storm of the year - and the winter storms have kept on coming. I now know that ice quakes  are a thing. I didn't feel the shaking in my house, but I did hear them. I know someone who lives in a trailer, and pretty much ever...

"Cultivated and consumed in South Africa for centuries for its healing properties, this herbal teasan, also know as red tea, features rich earthy vanilla notes." Apparently they felt that the only way to describe this tea is with a run on sentence. Perhaps they were just excited about going to South Africa. I would like to be there right now. It's summer there, and we are in our umpteenth winter storm. The predicted snow fall is 5-8 inches today. When I checked the road conditions (out of curiosity, not planning to go anywhere), most of the roads in the state were completely covered, with the southwest portion marked travel not advised. While I sometimes think I would get out some during these storms when I lived in town, last week there were some roads in town that were so horribly drifted it took the city longer to get those roads cleared up than the country roads. On well, I guess I'm stuck at home drinking tea. I brewed a cup, and took a sniff. I can pick out ...

I've certainly gotten my mileage out of my Moroccan tea cups even though I got them after I "visited" Morocco on my blog. You have to admit, they have the best cups so far, at least for aesthetics. This particular Moroccan mint blend is herbal, so it is a great tea for the evening. According to the package, this is also known as "nana mint", and has a light and lively sweet spearmint flavor. First off, I hate what is known as spearmint in the states. Thankfully, this tea does not taste like that. Mint teas are tricky. They either taste sweet, and minty, or kind of musty. It's hard to predict which way a mint tea is going to go. This brews for 5-6 minutes, which is a long time. The mint flavor comes out absolutely perfectly! I find that even loose leaf mint teas are a bit unpredictable (usually loose leaf teas are better quality and better flavor than bagged). I might have to add this to my list of bagged teas that I will drink. I've never looked to...

This tea, of course, is for China. According Numi's description, this tea originated in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and was reserved for the Imperial Court. Jasmine flowers are laid atop green tea leaves, and their scent is naturally embraced. I couldn't resist scattering a few jasmine pearls around for this one. The instructions on the back of the bag say to steep for 2-3 minutes as the scent of spring fills the air. Considering we just got our fist big snow of the winter yesterday, I'm totally ready for spring! Today, when I post this, we've had several snows since then - in only a few short weeks, and survived actual temperatures of -24 F on Wednesday, to waking up to 42 F on Sunday morning. I noticed the perfume of jasmine flowers as soon as I poured the water over the bag. I had my immediate fear of the feeling of drinking perfume. Either I'm getting used to jasmine tea, or high quality tea is way more palatable than the cheap stuff (yes!), but I liked t...