Number one, the hard drive on my home computer is apparently worn out (I’m using my mother’s laptop to post this currently), so I may not be around for a bit until we get a new computer, or I get onto the computers at school; whichever comes first. (And yes, I realize I have not been around much lately anyway, but I expected my posts to increase a bit now that I will be at school more. Plus I always feel it fair to post when I know I’m going to be absent.)
In the meantime, if anyone knows a way to transfer the data from the busted hard drive to a new one, I’d appreciate hearing it. We stupidly haven’t backed it up since the last computer switch (cats kept unplugging the external hard drive, so we lazily gave up) and we stand to lose 15 years worth of saved data. Boo.
Secondly, I stopped posting much about Christmas teas…partially because I was so busy, and partially because my Christmas kinda sucked. It’s very First-World-Problems to complain about your gifts, and I did get nice gifts – some nice sweaters and stuff, some school money. I know that I am normally hard to buy for, and I normally never make a list. But this year I actually made a list – mostly tea stuff, like a matcha bowl – and pretty much no one got me a damned thing on it. The only person who got me anything tea-related was my father, by some sheer luck – he doesn’t even live with me, but he knows I like Doctor Who and he got me a TARDIS bathrobe (which is awesome) and a TARDIS teapot (which is AMAZING and which I have wanted forever), and then my family managed to chip the latter by the end of Christmas Day shuffling it carelessly around the kitchen. Oh, and my sister got a copy of a PS3 reboot of a game series that I mostly play – not her – which she is spitefully hoarding in her room even though the console she is also hoarding in her room is a PS2 and won’t play that disc, and even though I let her play several hundred dollars worth of games I buy. So I had to buy my own copy. The overall feeling is just…no one really cares what I actually wanted, have a sweater.
Oh, and I was sick Christmas, and spent it eating chicken noodle soup.
So yeah. F-ck Christmas, and all associated tea flavours. I think I will opt out next year. I do better job getting myself what I want, and I’m sure some of my family members feel the same way. Maybe next year we can give each other money.
Finally…since this tea is discontinued and presumably not coming back, can I review it now?
Because I actually really, really like it…if made properly. Which is good, because I was never installed with a resist-sales feature, so I ended up with a ridiculous amount of this – probably more than a pound.
It smells so amazing, see, so that every time I smell it I have this odd desire to acquire more of it. It smells like…lemon candies, or something. Just yum.
Steeped, it is not anywhere near as strong as you would think from the smell, which is where my steeping preferences for this come in. I do this one at least double-strong, and I steep it for at least a half-hour in an iced-tea pitcher before I put the pitcher in the fridge. Generally, I also leave the leaves in to continue cold-steeping.
And it’s great! Really crisp and refreshing, a bit like lime Kool-Aid, but less sweet and more rejuvenating. If you have any lime mojito pre-mixed stuff around, it’s also nice to pour a splash of that into this tea to pump it up.
Unfortunately, the above described method is not a terribly cost-efficient use of tea leaves – even rooibos. Still, if you have some of this around that you’d like to use up, try that.
I hope at some point that Teavana tries for another tea with a similar taste profile, but stronger flavour. A lemon-lime theme shouldn’t be a bust, but the flavour needs more punch.
