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I think I get hungry with the time. I know my body isn’t telling me to eat because I just ate two hours ago and I’m still full. It is physiological. So, I break out the tea.

My brother came home from school early (half day) so I offered to make him a cup of tea as well. He chose Tension Tamer from Celestial Seasonings. I’m actually surprised anyone in the house likes it.

I got water ready and decided it is time for some Irish Breakfast. I picked out a bigger cup than usual so I might have had twice as much water than what I normally use but I don’t think it is much of a problem for this tea. It is really bold. It really reminds me of coffee and smells a little bit like my dad’s decaf JFG coffee to me. It would be really good first thing in the morning.

I put a little bit of milk in it with some agave nectar. It smoothed out the flavor a bit into something a little bit more low key for right now. Not by much though since I didn’t put that much milk in it. I had my brother try a little bit of it and he likes it. In fact, if I can get up early enough, he would like to have a cup before school. I think I would make it with a little more milk for him. Possibly only a 3 minute steep too so it would help him wake up better but not be too strong for him. He normally drinks herbal tea.

I do like it right now but I’m not really sure what to think about it. I think I would have to drink it a couple more times to really get an opinion on it. I do know one thing, I would probably get some packets of this to help me wake up in the morning at school. It would help wake me up since I am not a morning person and actually help me stay awake. That would be a good thing considering that I have an “early” class at 9 for next semester. And one of them actually requires thought while the other requires I be awake because it is physical activity.

I was reading a post last night on Numi’s 2 Week Puerh (Pu-erh?) Challenge blog and somebody had made oatmeal with her tea. I thought that this sounded interesting and different so I decided then that I would try it today.

So, I brewed up a tea of English Breakfast and made it a little stronger. Four minutes seems to be the magic point for me this week. The sips of the tea I had before I made the oatmeal were nice and kinda earthy. The taste is really difficult for me to put my finger on right now but it is good.

I poured about 1/4 a glass over raw oats and put some agave nectar on the oats and mixed it up. The oats all bunched up and looked a little sad that they weren’t getting any brown sugar and butter like they normally do. But the oatmeal was nice and thick. They tasted a little gluey without being the blech gluey taste that I have always associated raw oats with. It was a good earthy gluey. In hindsight, I would make the tea a little stronger for the oatmeal so I could get a little bit more of the tea’s flavor in the oatmeal. I would also put some fruit in the oatmeal next time as well.

The rest of the tea got some milk in it. I saw a picture of this mug (http://www.firebox.com/product/1975/MyCuppa-Mugs?via=ser) a while back and according to that mug I put enough milk in it for it to be considered milky. It was nice and very creamy while still having that mild earthy taste to it.

Edit: got the link down but actually had a typo. Bad English student! ; )

There was enough water in the kettle after dinner for me to make another cup of tea. This time I grabbed my green tea. It was so much better than the multiple cups I have had before of it. The kettle had at least five minutes to cool off from the boiling point. It was probably closer to 180 than anything but I’m not sure about that. I wish I did because it would be easier to replicate the results.

The first sip from the steep was so sweet on the tip of my tongue. It makes me smile just to think of the taste. It was light and crisp and reminded me of dewdrops on grass. I settled down with it an Brisinger by Paolini and just enjoyed myself.

As it cooled I was able to taste the ending tartness that the pomegranate always provides. This is when I’m glad I have eaten a lot of pom seeds. I know what it tastes like. This time I didn’t even have to put any sweetener into my tea at all like I normally have to or else it would be a little bitter. This time every drop, even the ending sips of my glass, went down cool and sweet.

I think I am figuring out that different types of teas do have slightly different methods of brewing to get their unique flavor out. This means that I will be enjoying my cups of pomegranate tea much more than I was.

This is the second time I have tried the Lady Grey tea. This time I steeped it for about 4 minutes and tasted it. It was more perfumy than the Earl Grey was and had a greater taste of sweet orange with the punch of tarty-sourness. So I put a little milk in it and that helped even out the overly perfumed taste.

I do have to say that I would have never thought that tea would make a good companion for a dinner. I was wrong. With the Lady Grey prepared this way it made the perfect compliment to the crock pot chicken that my mom made. With the sides being a fresh salad and a slice of buttered bread.

I also have to say that having tea with the meal helped fill me up more than soda or water or anything else I have had recently. Even with the smaller portion sizes I had. It was interesting and I would definitely have tea with a meal again.

I don’t think I like Lady Grey hot. I will have to try her iced and see if she goes better with my taste buds. I have to say even though I gave the Lady a good try, I think the Earl won my heart.

I was expecting to not like this tea after reading a lot of reviews about it and after trying Lady Grey. But, not wanting to try Irish Breakfast yet, I pulled out the Earl Grey teabag and started heating up my water.

I have no idea why I didn’t want to try this tea. I steeped it for 4 minutes because I remembered that Lady Grey was a little bitter after 5 minutes for me. This tea is delicious! It isn’t flowery and it has such a pleasant almost sour twinge to it. It is just enough to keep my tongue on its toes. I also really like the musky smell it has. It just reminds me of cuddling up to my boy after having a bad day.

I got this tea for Christmas a few years ago from my boyfriend’s mother. I love pomegranate and green tea so she got this for me. I like it hot and cold. I find it interesting to prepare because I always have the tart pom taste at the back of my throat when I get done.

This time I wanted to prepare it differently since it is cooler here but I didn’t want to drink another hot tea. I made a larger cup and steeped the tea with four tea bags. Then I filled up my blender with ice, squirted some agave into it, poured the tea over it, then blended it all together. It was pretty good like that. I still got that pom tang at the end but something tasted a little off.

So, when I finished I added a little bit of milk, some white sugar (I like my cold teas sweet), and a splash of vanilla extract. I blended that for a few seconds and that made all the difference. The milk brought more of a body to the blend so it wasn’t just iced tea with crushed up ice. The vanilla also smoothed out the tart punch at the end and added a little bit of flavor. And the sugar made it sweet enough for me.

I wouldn’t make this mixture very often but it tasted pretty good. It was almost like a smoothie for me. It made about 3 big mugs/glasses of drink and was cool. It would be good on a very hot day.

I was commenting on my blog on how I was just beginning to get into tea when somebody found me and suggested this site. After a day of lurking, I liked what I saw and here I am. I just picked up a sampler pack of Twinings teas from the store yesterday. I am still in the teabag phase and just starting to branch out into different flavors and different blends.

I didn’t steep this for very long because I am still getting used to black teas and I didn’t want it to come out too bitter. But now I’m not too sure I steeped it long enough. I also didn’t put any milk or sugar in the tea. I want to cut back on my sugar intake so I am learning to drink my tea straight.

It is strange. It tastes weak but strong at the same time. It isn’t unpleasant. I have four more bags of this to experiment with. I think next time I’ll steep it for a little bit longer than what I did. It has been slowly cooling down and as it cools it starts to get a little bitter in the back of my throat. Well, I’m not sure if bitter is the right word. It feels like my tongue and back of my throat gets dry after I swallow and has a strange aftertaste. This is the taste I normally associate with black tea when it cools honestly. Though sometimes my green teas do the same thing.

Overall, I think I am starting to like the taste. It has the texture of tea but the flavor reminds me of a weak cup of my Dad’s decaf coffee. I’m not sure if I would drink this in the afternoon that much but I could see myself waking up with a cup of this.