Twinings

Sometimes, you just need to fall back on an old favorite.

Just sitting here sipping on the last of my Earl Grey. It is yummy and I am so glad I tried it. I am going to have to get some more Earl Grey soon. The question is will it be this brand or a different brand? That is a decision I will have to make.

Earl Grey, hot with a hard salami and mozzarella sandwich. Comfort in a cup.

Backlogging:

It is the Earl’s day today. Earl tea oatmeal with a little bit of agave sweetner and orange cream yogurt on the side. I tried a bite of oatmeal with a dab of yogurt. It was good but the orange yogurt overpowered the tea in the oatmeal. But if I had a scoop or two of unflavored yogurt to mix into the oatmeal it would have been a fantastic hearty yet creamy meal.

I figured out that if I multitask and loose track of my steep time I need to take periodic sips of my tea so I can tell how strong it is getting. This time I was able to take the tea bag out before the tea got bitter. It was wonderful just like the first time I tried it.

I don’t know what possessed me to try this with milk and agave nectar but I won’t be doing that again. I think this is a tea that you need to take your time with. I also need to remember that I don’t like drinking teas underneath ceiling fans. I don’t know why.

I think I might have steeped this a minute too long for my tastes. Either that or I got used to drinking milked Lady Grey and I was expecting that taste from the Earl. If that is true then there is only one cure for that one. Lay off the black tea for a while and go and drink the lovely green pom tea. : )

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.

Backlog 1: Drank the rest of this last night, hot with milk and just a little bit of sugar. Super comforting and now I’m down a tin of tea.

Thanks to the Tea and Hookah bar, I have been drinking tea for the past two days. Last night and this morning I dragged out my tea chest and made myself some comforting English Breakfast prepared English style with milk and a spoonful of sugar.

I have about one more french press serving in my tin and then I will have drank two tins of this tea. I have a feeling that this will probably end up being a lifelong staple in my tea cabinet.

Time for more chai with this. I got chased out of the kitchen with the new Pomeranian puppy in the middle of making this one. Oh, did I mention that we got a new puppy? Her name is Bailey.

I think I added more cardamom and allspice than usual with this one or I didn’t add as much honey because I was working around a comb. I really want to try frying up the honeycomb, but I haven’t gotten the oil. I could just pan fry it in the cast iron skillet because it is so small.

Oh well, even if I did make a little cup of chai and it isn’t as sweet, it is still warm and comforting. Now I have to go pack for the Thanksgiving trip…

I am getting really good at getting the right proportions for my chai. I figured out how to make two servings for a big tea mug and a normal tea mug so that my brother and I looked like I got the same amount of tea. In reality, I got more because I had a bigger mug.

But the best part about making chai is that my brother loves it! And he doesn’t normally drink that much tea. I think it must be a special time for us because nobody else in my family makes chai and I always ask him about the spice ratio. We both agree that I need to get and try some fresh ginger in it and he loves it when I add nutmeg to the recipe.

With that and wearing my Samhain perfume from BPAL, this is turning out to be a lovely Halloween. Can’t wait until after work so I get to hand out candy to the littles with my fiance. I’m going to wear my rainbow fairy wings from last year and my rainbow scarf because it is a cold Halloween this year!

I may have been off of Steepster for a while, but I haven’t left my teas behind! I actually had to go out and buy a second tin of this and it is almost halfway gone now because of my not so secret obsession this winter: chai!

Yes, I’ve been perfecting my own dry chai spice mix to make an easy and quick stovetop chai for the mornings to try to get myself off of coffee. I have found out that the reason I keep slipping back to coffee is because of the overall savory feel-good mouthfeel I believed is also referred to as umami.

So far I have figured out the spices that I want: cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger being the top three players with nutmeg, pepper, and occasionally clove playing a part depending on what I want for the day. And fresh farmer’s market local honey being the sweetener instead of plain ol’ white sugar.

Normally I don’t have anything against coffee, but I have discovered that when I drink it in the morning, I don’t have any types of tea at all and I am less likely to drink water throughout the day. I have a theory that this is a hold over from when I worked at McDonalds and didn’t have time to drink anything else. So, that is why I’m trying to kick the morning coffee. Besides, chai tastes a whole lot better on the cooler autumn mornings than hot coffee for some reason.

So, I’ve woken up this morning to a little lesson. Don’t drink wine before bed and then be surprised if you wake up with a headache when you also stay up late because of your paranoia over spiders.

At least this morning will get a cup of tea. Hot with milk and it is comforting. Good way to start my day before work.

I wish I didn’t have to go back out and get my schedule for my other job tonight. It is such a pain how they do it. And they won’t post the schedules either. Frustrating.

Oh well. This will help me relax some. Hot with milk.

Backlog:

I had a cup of this before we went to New York on friday morning. It was so much fun! We went to the big Old Navy Store and the big Macy’s. Then we went around Times Square and I took pictures of pidgeons (I can’t help it, I’m strange). Then we went to Nintendo Land where I got a new game and a plush Fennikin just in time for the upcoming Pokemon X and Y release. And we got to walk around Rockafeller Plaza for a while and ended with a carriage ride through Central Park.

It was my first time in the city and I can’t wait to go again!

I had my last steep of this as some milk tea with a little bit of sugar. Just warm comfort in a cup and not too sweet like hot chocolate can get sometimes.

Wow. English Breakfast is harsher than I remembered. That’s what I get for getting used to putting some sugar in my tea. After a few sips it is back to normal. I did get used to milk in this one, so it is like a yummy creamy non-cocoa cocoa rich.

I think I can tell that I stayed up much too late last night with that sentence. Lesson: when I have to get up at a decent time for work, go to bed earlier!

I think I might be slightly addicted to this tea. It just is so comforting from the smell of the dry leaves to the final taste with milk. That and it is the only real batch of tea that I can pick up at the store with it loose in a tin. And the loose leaf version is vastly superior to the bagged version. And it also makes a pretty good iced tea too.

Oh my! Has it really been that long since I last tea-logged? I know it has been ages since I’ve had a cuppa tea, but surely it couldn’t have been that long. It has been so hot recently and I’ve just been so exhausted coming home from work that it has been hell.

But this tastes really good. Hot with milk and a big steaming cup full of it. I need to figure out a good way to make a bunch cold steeped tea with tea leaves for this hot weather.

So, I was emptying out my purse today and guess what I found? An English breakfast teabag. Perfect to go with my dinner.

After having a full tumbler of Irish Breakfast, I decide that the tumbler full isn’t enough tea for me. So, I brew up a tumbler of this to sip on when I am doing my paper. It is really mild and gentle after the Irish Breakfast. I put a little bit of milk in this tumbler, but it doesn’t really need it like the Irish does. I just like how it tastes with it in. So, I will be sipping on this for the rest of the night.

When you need comfort, it is easy to turn to a faithful cup of tea. Hot with milk and a little on the strong side.

Nothing tastes better at the end of the day than a reliable cup of tea with milk.

Hot with no milk.

Drinking this after getting back from being with my sick boyfriend. His fever broke so he should be fine. Now to see if I dodged the bullet as well.

Time to get back into tea. I find it difficult to keep up a consistent tea habit when I am at school because I don’t trust the kettle at school and I keep forgetting to bring tea bags to meals. But when I’m at home, everything is fair game.

This has been my comfort tea recently. Hot with a drop of milk.