Global Tea Time

While it is cold, bleak winter in the northern hemisphere, it is summer in New Zealand. Overall the climate of New Zealand sounds really nice. The country has slightly less area that the state of Colorado, and a little more land area than the UK. It is a land of mountains, harbors, and fjords. They are part of the Pacific ring of fire, and earthquakes are common in the islands. Like Kenya, elevation plays a role in temperature rather than weather fronts. The mountains are capped with glaciers. Oddly enough, my source says that 18 F and 50 F both convert to 10 C. It sounds like winter gets below freezing in some areas, and summers are warm, but not terribly hot. As with other mountainous islands, weather varies greatly depending on which sides of the mountains you are on. New Zealand's isolation also meant that the plants that evolved there are not seen in any other places on earth. There were fewer animals noted on the islands which meant that European settlers brought in many spec...

 2 months ago I posted about trying gyokuro . It's hard to believe it was that long ago. If you watched the video I linked in my first post all the way to the end, you will know what is coming today. Eating tea. According to Don, the tradition is to eat the spent tea leaves with a sprinkling of lemon juice and soy sauce IF the leaves are organic. Since my bag of tea has the magic word on it, I decided to give it a try after brewing some tea. First I tried them plain.  My first impression is that they really didn't have a discernable flavor. I thought maybe that was because I had just finished drinking the brew of the leaves, and that my taste buds were accommodated to the flavor. I covered them and put them in the fridge to see how they would taste after I got the taste of tea out of my mouth. Tasting #2 still had no flavor.  I actually have a bottle of tamari rather than soy sauce, and bottled lemon since I have a habit of not using the real ones up very fast if I do fee...

 When I woke up this morning, I was planning on a leisurely morning of tea drinking and writing. Then I opened the blinds.   Okay, it's not a lot of new snow, but it's enough that I should go out and do something about it. Maybe it will melt if I wait long enough - like spring - can I please stay home until spring? No white sand beaches here, walking barefoot outside would be a burning cold proposition. The only nice thing about cold weather is that if you put wind pants on over your pajama bottoms, the neighbors will never know if you are shoveling snow in your pajamas. I'm not speaking from personal experience or anything...  I had spent a while lounging in bed looking for more information on how countries in Oceana made tea. Still not much info. Sometimes if I wait a while, things get posted, but no such luck. I did come across a lot of videos for lockdown tea. Apparently a lot of people have been making special batches of tea to pass the time, or learning how to ...

 I've started writing some actual content blogs again. None of them are ready to post, so I looked back at my tea and lace photos. This one was my favorite. It is cherry sencha brewed in a kyusu style teapot served in a pink bistro cup. The lace is a tatted scarf of pink flowers. It reminds me of spring, and cherry blossom festivals. I've never been to a cherry blossom festival, but I do live in a community that has a lot of cherry trees (and apple trees, along with a few peach trees), and I always look forward to the early spring blooms to chase winter away.

 The last week of December/first days of January have been quite eventful. In a way, it forced me to get out of the house... all the way into a hotel room.  People romanticize a snowy scene. Do not be fooled, this stuff is to be hated if you are old enough to have to shovel it, or drive in it. It doesn't look like much from the 11th floor of a hotel, but this area got about 9 or 10 inches of snow. While you can see the streets, I can assure you that one would not want to drive on them. We got a glaze of ice after the snow, and the block long walk from work to the hotel was quite slow. I was glad I was wearing sturdy boots so I could comfortably walk on the piles of snow rather than the snow cleared yet icy sidewalks. The next morning I realized that I could see the lot where I parked my car from my window.  Do you see that car half covered in snow in the unplowed square of snow? Yep, that's my ride. I had to whack the icy shell to break it before I could get the snow off....