Skulleigh

I have a couple of tea bottles I alternate between at work. There’s the Lock & Lock and the generic one (it’s like this one: http://amzn.com/B001KW03I6 ). I realized that this tea really doesn’t like the generic bottle. There’s just not enough room in the basket for the leaves to expand. So the tea ends up kind of astringent, unlike in the Lock & Lock where they float around freely like some strange species of green seahorse.

So if you’ve tried this and found it too heavy or astringent, give it some room to swim around. It’s much better that way.

Only 3 more bags to go. I just don’t enjoy this tea. The coffee-room creamer might have something to do with that though.

After a delightful weekend, it’s back to work. Saturday night, we drove to Dinosaur Valley State park and sat at the entrance in the dark to watch the Perseid meteor shower with a few other random star geeks who found their way there as well. The Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex is dreadfully light polluted, but out at the park (in Glen Rose) we could actually see the Milky Way, and we were able to see quite a few good meteors.

It was all quite last-minute jump-in-the-car-and-go, but if I had planned ahead, a thermos of this tea would have been perfect. Warm and cocoa-y!

There are more meteor showers to be seen this fall and winter, and for once, hubby said he’d be willing to camp with me if it means seeing meteors. Woohoo!

I’m moving in slow motion today. Hubs and I went out to a bar for karaoke for a friend’s birthday last night. Good thing my esophagus seems to be back in fighting shape – the AR appears to have given up for now. I still need to go make a doc appointment though.

So I am letting a prince rescue me for once – Prince Wladimir that is. I love that the Kusmi labels have both English version of the names and the European/French ones.

I am out of half&half, unfortunately, so it’s not as good and frothy as I usually make my lattes. Plain old milk just doesn’t do it for me!

Grabbed a bag of this from the breakroom, steeped, and iced for an afternoon, caffiene-free drink.

It’s all right iced, I’m not a big fan of it hot. Doesn’t need sweetening iced.

An all around magical mood calls for mermaids.

After lunch, I still needed something to drink, to cool me down from lunching outside, but I wanted something tea and caffiene free due. My drawer here at work offered only this and a bag of Tazo Licorice Spice. My tummy says no to the Licorice Spice right now, though it’s not bad herbal.

So the Lock & Lock got rinsed out, and I steeped the peppermint, then added ice. Refresing and cooling. It’s exactly what I need.

My acid reflux is still acting up, and I have been having trouble sleeping, so I’m watching my tea intake for now, in case it’s aggravating either issue. That’s not fun.

So I limited myself to 1 cup of tea today, and figured a green would be better than a black on my stomach.

Made myself drink an entire bottle of water before having my tea, and then had the Jasmine. Nursed it through lunch, when I iced it and enjoyed it outside in the 99 degree level of Hades that is north Texas at the moment.

I found this at Bed, Bath, & Beyond; which is a household goods store in the US and Canada.

It looks like a tetsubin, but it’s enameled on the inside, which makes it a kyūsu, apparently. At least, according to Wikipedia, which we all know can never be wrong.

It’s very sturdy and retains heat well, though it can get quite warm on the outside – don’t try to open the lid until it cools down. The handle stays cool though.

It pours very, very well – better than my Brown Betty or plain white 16 oz pot. After my first pour, I figured out how it pours, and I can pour without spilling a single drop. It doesn’t run down the spout.

When filling the pot, it does go way up the spout, so do watch for that as you move it around.

The infuser basket is quite nice, and the trivet has rubbery feet to protect the table.

All in all, I’m quite happy with it!

Hubs and I were escaping the heat of the house yesterday, and ended up at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Our air conditioner had gone out, but thankfully we found a competent company to fix it within hours – and relatively cheaply. But meanwhile the house heated up, and we were waiting for it to cool back down by partaking in others’ AC. So there we were looking around, and we came across a cast iron teapot that looks a lot like the ones used at one of the sushi restaurants we go to. Hubs was a very nice man, and got it for me. It came with a trivet and a wire mesh infuser basket. On the way home I kept thinking “Tetsubin? Is that the right word for it?” I looked it up, and while it looks like a tetsubin, it’s enameled on the inside, which makes it just a kyūsu (teapot). I am pleased that I kinda remembered what a tetsubin was though!

For its first pot, I brought out my Genmai Cha. I got this awhile back when hubbylove gave me a tea-of-the-month subscription for Christmas. It’s an odd tea, and one I can’t quite decide if I like or not. If I drank it all the time, I think I might like it, but drinking it only once in awhile just makes me go “this is so strange.”

The popped rice and popcorn do give it a nutty flavor. It’s not *un*pleasant, but I think it’s just not for me. This is one I’ve been trying to use up here and there. It’s probably halfway down, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish it off before it gets too old.

I gave hubby a small cup – I used my tiny handle-less Japanese teacups – because he loves popcorn. He said he was not sure he liked it, but he might get used to and start to like it. But that the thing that makes him hesitant is actually the popcorn taste, strangely enough.

The teapot is the best pouring one I have now – it pours wonderfully, and after the first pour, I can pour a cup without spilling a drop of tea. I wish the rest of my pots poured as nice!

I managed to get half of my dirty dishes done last night, including my Lock & Lock, so this morning’s “toss in the leaves and run” is Kusmi Caramel.

Drinking it straight, slowly. It’s not really appealing to me this morning though. I wish I’d grabbed some Keemun Concerto or the black dragon pearls that I found I still had this morning.

I think the problem is that I’ve got summer fever. It’s just too darn hot for leaving the house, even in the morning. I’d rather be drinking my tea out of a teapot with some real cream and sugar than the office. I am feeling grumpy, and I want the ritual. But I can’t have it at the moment and it’s making me grumpier! Harumph!

It was far too hot yesterday afternoon to do anything in the kitchen, so we threw in the towel and went out to eat, where someone else’s industrial air conditioner was not laboring as much as our home’s unit. So my dishes still sit unwashed on the counter – including all of my tea bottles.

So today, I went with Rhapsody in the Bodum in-mug infuser basket that a co-worker gave me two Christmases ago for a Secret Santa gift (along with a joke box of shudderingly horrible-smelling mystery “health” tea from an Asian market). I keep it my desk drawer at work, so I always have it. The mug and infuser that is. The mystery tea got tossed long ago – it was nasty!

I emptied the last of the sampler sized tin into the basket (I’ll have to take it home and refill it), and got hot water from the dispenser.

There’s not much to add on this tea that I haven’t said before. It’s my dependable default for a black tea at work.

Forgot to log this yesterday!

I got lazy over the weekend and didn’t do the dishes, so my 2 main tea bottles were still dirty. All that was left was the way-too-tiny Republic of Tea press that I bought a few years ago. It’s annoyingly small. But I grabbed it, and popped in some Keemun Concerto leaves. Added hot water when I got to work, and had to continually refill it until the leaves petered out around 10 am.

This tea is so good, it almost makes up for that annoying little press. The water at work isn’t hot enough, so the cocoa notes don’t come out as much in the taste, but it still smells like it.

I’m quite tempted to get a small electric kettle for my desk!

I woke today with a headache, so I cancelled my plans for the afternoon, and after pushing myself to get on the treadmill and at least get my exercise done for the day, I brewed up some of this, and headed for the couch. I’ve had an afternoon of browsing reddit, playing a little Minecraft, and bad TV :) Oh, and pizza.

But I digress… this tea is so very good. I am a fan. It’s tasty and comforting. And it takes so little to get a nice strong brew.

It’s my last day of the work week, and I was not wanting to wake up this morning. Forgot to wash my Lock & Lock, so I grabbed my generic tea bottle. I am not fond of the basket in it, so I left it at home and decided to stick with bagged teas today.

As far as this specific tea goes, I’m pretty much just trying to drink it down and empty the tin. It’s not one I look forward to, I’m just trying to get through it.

My afternoon was taken up with a very important meeting with my CEO. In which most of the development department played a card game. LOL! So this was a pretty good choice for a light afternoon iced drink.

Rough seas this morning. I steeped too long, and a sip of it tastes like a shot across my bow instead of the lapping of a calm harbour.

A bit of sweetener helps a bit, but it still shivers me timbers a bit.

Hope everyone else has smoother sailing today.

Oh the indignity. To treat a princess like this…

It’s Monday, and I wanted something with a little more kick to it, so I tossed some Anastasia into my tea bottle to bring with me to work.

Arrived, and added some suboptimally heated water to the bottle, let it brew, then poured into a mug with a packet of Splenda and a tub of breakroom coffee creamer.

A true princess rises above these things, and comports herself with grace. As does Anastasia. You can tell she is no common working class tea. She would be much better with sugar and real cream, but she will make do with what is here.

I really do need to start bringing half and half with me to work…

Had a latte of this to accompany my lunch of rice and meatballs. Very good, the citrus was a good match to the beef.

Oh dear. I’m starting to get to the bottom of this tin. I definitely haven’t logged all the times I’ve drank this!

I made some blueberry cheesecake muffins from a mix for an afternoon snack, and this is quite a good match.

It’s my day off, so I’m sitting on the sofa with my jar of oatmeal (I make my oatmeal 5 servings at a time in canning jars on Sunday, and keep it in the fridge. Steel cut oatmeal – yum. Best discovery I have made in awhile.). I opened the cabinet where I keep my tea, wondering what I was in the mood for. One of the Kusmi Russian teas? A chai? No! My eyes spotted the sample bag of Keemun Concerto I got as a freebie in my last Adagio order. I had been waiting for a nice unrushed morning to try it out. It’s time!

I opened the bag and took a sniff. Sweet and cocoa-y. Other people call this tea “malty.” Perhaps that’s really what I mean when I say cocoa-y, but I am not sure. Calling to mind the taste of the inside of milk duds… yes, I think that might be it. I’m still going with cocoa-y though.

The leaves pretty much look like Keemun Rhapsody, and the smell is similar, but it’s less tobacco-y to me. More cocoa/malty but less pipe tobacco-like.

I brewed it in my ingenuiTea and after a short steep, decanted into my mug, added half & half and sugar and whipped it with my milk frother. Yuuuuuuum.

I may change my mind again on the in-case-of-zombies tea stash. This is gooooood. It’s more filling than my oatmeal! I’ve barely touched the oatmeal, but I have already sucked a mug of the tea down while writing this post.

Though I still agree with Hester June that pearls are probably the most efficient zombie stash. I had a sample of black dragon pearls that are probably quite similar in taste. Dang, I think I am out of that though – it would have been nice to do a side-by-side comparison.

I did my second Zombies, Run! mission after dark last night. I didn’t go as far though – not because I was fearful of zombies, but because I was afraid to busting my butt on our uneven sidewalks in the dark. I think I will stick with daylight runs for now.

Decanted the seconds steep into my mug. Trying this straight. It brewed longer, of course. Strong, and smokey. I don’t get the cocoa/malt taste in this cup. I don’t like it straight as much as I like Keemun Rhapsody – it’s heavier. Serious, if you will.

Definitely a thumbs up as a latte though. That was great.

Now to get going and start my day. I need to go bra shopping. Oh joy. :/

Grrrrr… argh…

I am so very sleepy this morning. I even hit snooze too many times and was subsequently late for work. D’oh!

So simplicity is what this morning calls for. Brewed this up in my generic tea bottle, with water out of the dispenser, which technically isn’t hot enough, but, again, simplicity. I was already heating my oatmeal.

This time, I am tasting the cocoa notes of this, which don’t usually come through for me as much. It’s a comforting, dependable tea though, and that’s what counts.

Last night, I downloaded the Zombies, Run! app to my cell phone, and went for a quick walk/occasional sprint with it. It was a lot of fun as I went around my own neighborhood, imagining it as a post-apocolyptic wasteland where I gathered supplies and ran away from hordes of shuffling undead.

I was thinking this morning that I would definitely have to add tea to my must-pick-up supplies in a Zombie invasion. This tea would be on my hoped for list. And Jasmine tea, as well. At some point, you might be reduced to Lipton teabags though. shudder

If you knew a Zombie invasion was coming, what tea would you stockpile? :D

I woke up feeling life should be more magical, and that I want to run away and join the circus. So I went to see the Mermaid.

I still want to run away and join the circus, but at least I have something nice to drink while I grouse.

I wanted a green tea this morning, since the hot water dispenser at work doesn’t get quite hot enough for black tea. I grabbed my little sample tin of this. I have only one more spoonful of the dry leaves left after this, so I might polish it off this afternoon. Hooray for reducing the stash! Brewed in my Lock & Lock tea bottle.

Nice and light, but not the best pairing with my oatmeal with bananas. The oatmeal is really obscuring my ability to taste a green tea. Black tea with my oatmeal is a better plan, and since I have steel cut oats in jars ready for the rest of this week’s breakfasts, I guess I’d better just heat water in the microwave the next two days.

I digress… Emerald Needle: Light, dare I say airy? Not too astringent, but that might be the oatmeal talking. I like it, and I know it works well iced. This might need to go on my shopping list, though I might try another company’s version to expand my experience a bit.