Barley Tea (From Ito En)

I started drinking Ito En bottled tea about a year ago when one of my best friends left for college. She loved Ito En tea and throughout high school her backpack always sported a bottle of it. I wasn't sure if I liked it very much, but after my friend left I decided to try it again, because I kept seeing it and being reminded of her. I came to the conclusion that my first impression of the Ito En was wrong and over the course of the past year I have enjoyed many Ito En green and jasmine bottled teas.

Recently I've been curious about barley tea because Lupicia has so much of it in so many different flavors. I was thinking of buying some but I didn't want to make that commitment before tasting it. So today I when I stumbled upon some Ito En barley tea I decided to try it. My first sip left me confused. There was a hint of something that reminded me of chestnuts but then it was dragged down by an overwhelming bitterness. However I wasn't ready to give up. Upon my return home I heated up the barley tea and sweetened it a bit, but I was still unimpressed. I asked my mother to taste it too and she said it tasted like watery coffee. I assume it's an acquired taste.

Jasmine Tea: A love affair? An addiction? Currently a collection.

In highschool jasmine tea helped me through many a tough essay. A really hard essay would take at least four cups of jasmine tea and until about 2am the night before the paper was due to finish. I am now at a point where my brain is no longer trained to function past 11:30pm so I go through the same process slightly earlier in the day. The jasmine tea pictured here is from Trader Joe's. It has jasmine pearls, which means the tea leaves the tea consists of were rolled into little balls. It is very strong so I usually use one tea bag to make a pot of tea rather than a cup. Then I can sit back and sip it throughout my procrastination induced writing adventure. At the moment I own several varieties of jasmine green  tea. The different teas have their own charming subtleties that differentiate them but they all share a delightful flavor that tells me that I have a paper to write.

The mug shown above was made to commemorate the royal wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. I acquired it because my friend's grandmother collected a few of them and decided to distribute them amongst the the youths sleeping over at her house. When I am older I hope I to distribute mugs to youths in a similar manner. Behind the mug one can glimpse my essay on the importance of liberal arts education taking form.