Tardis Tea (From Adagio)

Once again I have found myself procrastinating in the library whilst cuddling with a bottle of delicious tea. Today I am accompanied by Tardis tea from adagio. I was ecstatic when I received this tea as a late Hanukkah present, after my positive experience with the Eleven tea of which I have previously written. The Tardis tea offers a fantastical spin off a classic earl grey. The tea is a blend that includes: black tea, white tea, blueberries, orange peels, blue cornflowers, and is embellished with natural bergamot, vanilla, blueberry, caramel and cream flavors. It is something I categorize as a dessert tea, meaning that is is something I drink when I want to eat a dessert but don't have any accessible to me. It is called Tardis tea because like the Tardis in Doctor Who the packaging has more on the inside than expected. Unlike the most recent season of Doctor Who this tea never disappoints. 

This picture features me with my favorite water bottle. It has a glass interior and a bamboo exterior which can be removed so that the interior can be placed in the dishwasher. It is a pinnacle of convenience in my busy tea drinking life. 

Tea Tags

One of my more lovely friends has acquired the habit of collecting tea tags and making zines out of them. Since she does not drink enough non-looseleaf tea on her own to feed this urge to collect, I have gotten into the habit of saving tea tags for her. Just about every time I send her a letter I put the array of tea tags I've collected since my last letter in the bottom of the envelope. Collecting tea tags is a bit of a challenge for both of us, since we both prefer loose leaf teas. Fortunately my roommate has a surplus of bagged tea so she has henceforth aided us in the pursuit of this collection.

The tea package featured above with the tea tags belongs to a Licorice Peppermint herbal tea from Choice Organic Tea (my school's preferred tea brand.) I happened upon said package on the ground as I made my way out of the library on a brisk winter day. Seeing that it was both sealed and a tea I had never encountered I scooped it up. I swiftly returned home to brew it. It turned out to be just what I needed in that moment. The licorice and the peppermint circled around each other an enticing manner, drawing me in to their dance. The licorice added a depth to the peppermint that I hadn't experience before. I've been meaning to try it again ever since, but for some reason the moment has not yet arrived.

London Fog (Made With Choice Organic Teas)

I started today off mostly asleep. I was dreaming about swimming and it was such a lovely dream that  getting up and going to the first day of my beginning martial arts class seemed borderline impossible. To remedy this situation I made myself a cup of Townshend's pear green tea. I had just stared sipping it when I realized the time had come to leave the comfort of my cozy kitchen for my voyage to campus. I poured my tea into a travel mug as I flitted to and fro, gathering my belongings. Unfortunately by the time I reach my class my travel mug was no longer on my person. In my hurry I had abandoned it on my kitchen counter. I was still not awake enough to consider simply going without tea until the conclusion of my classes for the day, so after martial arts I meandered down to one of plethora of coffee shops my school harbors. I gazed lustfully at a brown sugar mocha but I knew what I had come for: a London Fog. 

I had seen London Fogs on menus around campus for about 6 months before I first sipped one. It took me that long to try one because I wasn't sure what they were and at the time I mostly frequented coffee shops for the purposed of purchasing actually coffee. Then towards the end of the school year -after 

I had given up coffee- I had an assignment in my Nutrition class to tell the class about a favorite drink and its nutritional value. I talked about Jasmine Tea and then one of my classmates present a diagram of a London Fog. Its components included earl grey tea, vanilla syrup and steamed milk. I was sold. I immediately started using London Fogs to fill the hole my mochas, lattes and cups of coffee with a lot of sugar had left. 

So here I am: in the library procrastinating a essay, slightly less asleep with a charming, comforting, caffeinating, London Fog. 

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.

Constant Comment Green (From Bigelow)

According to my mother Constant Comment Green tea is very hard to find. The black tea version of Constant Comment is more widely available. Constant Comment holds an important place in our household because as a child it was the first tea my mother tried that wasn't Lipton. Constant Comment is flavored with orange rinds and a variety of spices that make it seem like mulled cider's tea-born cousin. Overall it is a lovely drink to sip if you-like me- don't believe that pumpkin is an appropriate flavor for everything edible in the month of November.

The mug shown above is one of my favorites. It features a hebrew blessing for coffee that some delightful potter made up. The direct translation is "Blessed is the one who gives coffee to the weary."

Tea-ja Vu

In my youth I would often prepare my tea in a microwave and when I engaged in this habit late at night I was witness to a slightly annoying phenomenon. I would place a cup of water with a teabag into the microwave, I would turn on the microwave and then when the microwave finished I would be doing something else so I would put off collecting my tea. Then I would completely forget about it for a short amount of time. I would only remember the tea after thinking to myself I wish I had tea right now, then after putting another tea bag in a cup of water and opening the microwave I would discover that I  already had tea. Naturally I didn't want to put the second tea bag back, it was already wet so I would just make another cup and alternate drinking both teas. My sister and I named this phenomenon "Tea-ja Vu."

Even now in my post-microwave tea drinking I encounter similar phenomena: I usually make my first cup of tea soon after waking up. I then carry said tea with me as I leave the warm cocoon of my kitchen and attempt make my way in the world. The problem occurs when I leave my tea on the counter to steep and forget to take it with me upon leaving. I am then very tired and I usually convince myself that my best option is buying tea. I am still pleasantly surprised when I come home and my first cup of tea is there waiting for me.

(I found the image above painted on an electrical box, it seemed appropriate.)