Global Tea Time

I've  gotten back to the point where I have several partially finished posts, and have been too much of a putz to work on them. While regular adulting is a boring drudge, adulting during a pandemic is soooo much worse. It doesn't help that I work in an essential department in a hospital, so we don't have the luxury of staying home in quarantine if we are exposed. I have been making a little bit of lace. I haven't really been working on bobbin lace, but since the IOLI convention had to be converted to being held online, I did make some decorated masks. I finally had a reason to pull out my art tatting book and try some things out. I kept it pretty simple because I'm still working full time, and I don't have hours to devote to making the perfect piece of lace to cover a mask. Cherry blossoms on my mask to promote lace making and the well being of lace makers. I call it saved by the stash. This was my entry for a decorated homemade mask. It's pretty si...

Today we are taking a detour to the foothills of the Himalayas to the Darjeeling region of India. Thanks to a recent tea order, I have a bag of first flush Darjeeling. It was the perfect time to order it because first flush teas are plucked in early spring - the first plucking of the season. I was also curious about the flavor, because the Darjeeling region has a unique interaction of plants and environment that produces tea with the distinctive flavor of the region. It is often described as the champagne of black teas. My favorite tea shop describes 1st flush Darjeeling as follows:   Teas from Darjeeling are reputed to have fresh, muscatel and flowery aromas. The term "First Flush" refers to the first plucking season of the year - March to April. Teas from the First Flush are greener, lighter and more flowery in taste compared to their later season relatives. I found a little video about production of Darjeeling tea to share: Withering, 18 hours of ambient air flow...