Global Tea Time

Since I never got around to posting anything last week, I figured I better get off my behind and post something this week. To say that I have been less motivated about life in general would be an understatement. I did make it to the grocery store this morning. I was amazed to see that there were paper towels and toilet paper. Still no sanitizing wipes or bottles of hand sanitizer, but they did have small jugs of bleach. Progress, I guess. I decided to drink with a friend today. A decidedly un-furry friend, although most of them do have fur. I'm referring of course, to my Yixing mug with a cat for a handle. I bought this mug last summer. It was on clearance because it had a chip on it. I didn't see any chips on it when I was at the store, and I love cats, so I got it. I eventually found there is a chip about the size of a pin head under the cat's armpit. Not a problem for me (and saving a significant amount of money was a nice perk). Yixing tea ware is made of an u...

Today I had a half finished draft of a blog post where the links to videos had all died. Thank you Blogger. Since I really didn't feel like dealing with finishing it, and fixing the bad links, I decided to just sit and drink. This afternoon I'm having my Swiss chocolate black tea with a little cream in it from my pink bistro cup. I always think of my sister when I use these, because they are 6 oz cups. The perfect size for her hot chocolate. Bonus, you can buy them in stores now, you don't have to comb the thrift stores. Apparently the Netherlands believe in smaller drink sizes (at least for bistro cups). I was amazed by the endorphin hit I got with the first sip. Chocolaty, creamy (but no sugar added), and warm. Perfect for a chilly day during a very stressful spring. I'm well aware of the fact that most people are choosing much harder drinks to get through these days, but I do enjoy the lack of hangover and the fact I can drink before work without consequences. M...

I've known about tea pets for a while, but I've been too cheap to get any...until now. Yes, lockdown has made me flip my lid, and start ordering frivolous tea items online. I've been trying to support small businesses, and I feel conflicted about ordering from Amazon since workers are reporting unsafe working conditions. Since the tea stores in my state don't sell gaiwans. My favorite tea shop tried selling them, but found people in this state really didn't go for them. While their website shows 2 different types of gaiwans available, they are out of stock. So, I started looking at the tea shop where I bought my gong fu set from. Admittedly, I bought my gong fu set through Amazon, but the order was fulfilled by a small business in Murfreesboro Tennessee. I decided to skip the middleman and buy straight from the source. They also had a deal on shipping, and several items on sale. So, I am now a proud tea pet owner. While my pets are larger than I expected, it would g...

Today we are visiting an old favorite. Ginger cinnamon tea. This was listed as being popular in Haiti , and Dominican Republic . Haiti and Domincan Republic share the island of Hispaniola. Haiti is on the west side of the island, and includes several small islands as well. The people there are descendants of African slaves, and they won their independence from France in 1804. Fun fact: they are the second country in the Americas to gain their independence. Cuba is 50 miles away, and Jamaica is 120 miles away. Haiti is mountainous with rocky shores rimmed with cliffs. There are 4 mountain ranges that run along the middle of the island. Being on the leeward side of the island, there are some dry areas. They also have a tropical climate where temperature is moderated by elevation. This positioning also helps protect them somewhat from hurricanes although the southern peninsula is more vulnerable. Much of the native vegetation was cleared for agricultural land from the 17th to 19th cent...

Okay, this post has absolutely nothing to do with tea (other than I'm sipping my ginger pu-erh while posting this), but I had an orchid that finally decided to bloom. It sent out the stalk for the flowers in January, and today is the day! Given the strange times right now, I thought I would throw in a little joy from the natural world that lives in my window. 

Today's post is a bit late. I went to the grocery store this morning (first time in 3 weeks). The good news is that there was food. There was also a little TP left, along with paper towels, and several bottles of dish soap. Liquid hand soap, rubbing alcohol, regular hand sanitizer, hydrogen peroxide, and sanitizing wipes/sprays were still nowhere to be seen. There were little bottles of 80% alcohol from a local distillery that were being hawked as hand sanitizer. It was just plain alcohol being sold at double the price... The pictures on my stored post were also gone, so like last week, I had to go in and add them back, so the formatting is a bit wonky again. I got this recipe for tea in the British Virgin Island s from an advertisement. It wasn't an advertisement for tea, rather an advertisement for soy sauce. Yes, you read that right. I was a little skeptical myself, but decided to give it a try. Here are the ingredients. Earl grey tea, ginger, lemon peel (and lemon j...

The North American continent has held some surprises. So did this website when I opened my post and found that all my pictures were gone! I had a grey oval with a minus sign in the middle of them in their place. Sigh. Good thing I don't delete my pictures right away. Now I have to go find them again. Also, adding the pictures back in is totally messing up the formatting, so sorry if the post looks a little weird. I have found a couple of "different" tea recipes. They start out pretty standard, then add an unexpected twist. Guatemala was one such place. It is also referred to being in Central America, so it depends on how you want to split things up. It shares a border with Mexico and Belize to the north, and Honduras and El Salvador to the south. Sadly, one of the things I remember about Guatemala was a show I heard on NPR in college talking about how the CIA really got started by starting the guerrilla war in Guatemala. Peace came in 1996, and elections have been held...