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Tisane of the early afternoon…
This afternoon’s PT appointment included lots of painful exercises by them intended to get my shoulder joint moving again. What I need to work on is keeping my anxiety levels down throughout this process. Tulsi to the rescue!

Decided to have a cup of this when I got home. It’s one of my favorites from Organic India. the ginger and tulsi combination is simple yet quite good. I’m not a huge fan of the way that tulsi tastes so I like the fact that the ginger sort of overwhelms it. I think this might be my last bag of this as I gave most of it to my boyfriend last week. I could probably try making my own blend with the tin of loose tulsi I have in the cupboard!

I have a lot of this and decided I would brew some up today and have it iced. This was a really good decision, I think I prefer it cold and if you pour it over ice the tartness is diluted somewhat and it becomes more refreshing. I will have to try giving this the cold brew treatment soon. I’m glad I discovered it’s good cold because I might actually finish it someday. ;-)

I am trying to enjoy my morning and was thinking about going back to sleep but that seems like it’s impossible. My neighborhood has been noisy and I have anxiety about my physical therapy appointment today which should be about as much fun as a root canal.

I picked this out of my stash today, it’s been a while since I’ve had this. It still seems like a spicy orange chai to me, I don’t know how they are getting “cookie” out of this but it’s fairly tasty no matter what you call it. This is definitely better with sugar though.

I thought I’d try cold brewing this one. I’ve had the tea for a few months and I don’t seem to be drinking it much because I’m not really crazy about it. The green tea is definitely nice coldbrewed and I was hoping that would bring out some more of the almond notes and even though it smells almondy, it tastes mostly like artificial flavoring and bitterness. I do like flavored teas but not when they taste like chemicals. I have this issue with several of David’s tea blends too.

Anyway I hope I will finish this off someday but that might be a challenge when I have so many better green teas in my stash and it looks like I have about 2 oz. of it. Le sigh. At least I know that I prefer this one hot.

It’s strawberry season here and I decided I was going to make a smoothie with the strawberries I got yesterday, a bit of pineapple, hemp seeds and this matcha. Overall my concoction isn’t bad, it’s a bit on the tart side. Normally I add bananas to smoothies but this morning I was all out. At least this is a healthy breakfast, though you can’t really taste the matcha in it.

Oddly enough I woke up in the middle of the night again with arm pain and swelling in my hands and fingers. I don’t quite understand how a shoulder fracture could be causing all these issues but my PT seems to think it’s due to the time I was immobolized in the sling. I haven’t been wearing the sling for 3 weeks, I wonder when my body will adjust?

At least it looks like a gorgeous day here…

Sipdown of the day…

I’ve gone through a few tins of this since I discovered it, well technically they are mesh teabags inside a tin and not loose leaf, but I still love this Moroccan mint. It’s good hot or iced and today I’m having it iced since I steeped some up this morning to save it for later. I find that moroccan mint is not as good with stevia as it is with sugar.

We are having a beautiful warm and sunny day here…
I’m not back at work yet so I’ve been trying to relax and enjoy myself. I haven’t tried this one cold yet, so I thought I’d make a cold matcha latte, threw this in a blender with soymilk and some ice and it’s sheer perfection! The blender gave my matcha drink a nice frothy top. I love this and am seriously tempted to buy a few more from Red Leaf.

I’ve discovered I’m not really a huge fan of maté and this is the only maté blend in my cupboard right now. Somehow I just can’t get into it. I do like the way the chocolate and malt notes here complement the roasted maté flaor and I definitely feel the energy boost from this one so I’ll have to be careful about how much other caffeine I drink this morning. A tasty blend…

Tea of the morning I’ve unearthed from my stash pile…

I am happy that I slept through the night and I don’t remember getting up once! 9 weeks post injury, this is a major achievement for me. I credit the massage I got yesterday and sleeping with a teddy bear under my arm, lol. Let’s hope this is a trend that continues.

This is a delicious chinese red tea I described in my original tasting note, It’s still so good. I love the mellowness of this tea. Even steeping for 3 minutes Western style like I did this morning, I am detecting no bitterness at all, just very mellow and rich chocolate and caramel notes. Perhaps it’s time to think about placing another order with Jing, maybe when the 2014 teas are out.

Here’s my afternoon tea, generally I’m not a big RoT fan but I do like this lemony green rooibos for some reason. It’s a tasty blend that goes well with the soymilk I like and actually tastes kind of dessert-y.

I haven’t done a whole lot today, I got a foam roller to do some stretching, went for a walk and had a massage. I started an interesting book called “Women of the Silk” by Gail Tsukiyama. All in all, it’s been a nice day for healing and rest. It’s good to have some non-caffeinated options that I like.