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This is a chance combination of tea and a book club!
I recently had an idea that I thought was really cool, but wasn’t sure how others would feel about it, so I decided to put it out on the interwebs for feedback. And the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
I’m sipping on Nepal Black from David’s Tea and starting up a new book club titled “Old Books Are Cool”. Every week we’ll be reading a chapter from a book that is at least 80+ years old, most of which will be free in ebook format and certainly free from the library. At the start of every chapter I’ll be posting themes, historical context, cultural context, and sometimes questions to think about.
I really wanted to find a way to share with people older literature that often gets ignored in today’s society, I think in large part because it’s hard to understand without all the contextual stuff that goes with it.
So why am I posting this? I want to open this up to any friends on Steepster, or Steepsterites in general who might be interested. Our first book will be The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells and I’m aiming to start next week. The book club is being hosted in google groups so anyone can participate no matter where they are, and if someone has a week they can’t read they can just catch up whenever they want.
If this sounds like something you’re interested in, just send me a message with the email address you’d like added to the group. :)
My first time logging a chance combination!
My stomach has been off today. I got REALLY excited when I learned that Arizmendi, a local bakery, is making gluten free pumpkin muffins. I picked up two yesterday, one for me and one for Rayn to have for breakfast today. I think there was either some gluten cross-contamination or I’m just really not used to eating sugary/grainy foods anymore because my tummy was not happy the rest of the day!
I’m sipping on a combination of Adagio’s Anhui Emerald Seed (green) and some peppermint, brewed up at 175 for about 3 mins. It’s nicely pepperminty without being too strong, and since I haven’t cared for this green tea at all (it doesn’t seem to have any flavor no matter what I do with it) it might as well go towards the healing effort. :)
Preparation
D: Damn those muffins! I’m sad for you. If gluten was my kryptonite, I don’t know what I’d do.
…unintentional poem?
gluten makes me sick
but kryptonite can’t stop me:
peppermint tea saves
This haiku brought to you by Becky’s poetry class and gluten intolerance.
=)
Was craving a chocolate mint black tea this morning and have none in my stash, so I improvised. I could have made a peppermint hot chocolate again, I suppose, but I needed tea.
So I took two teaspoons of Bourbon Sunday Blend (vanilla black tea) from the Tea Table, threw in a Bigelow Mint Medley teabag, and added milk, turbinado sugar, and a tsp or two of mini chocolate chips from my baking cupboard. Makes a pleasantly sweet, minty, slightly chocolatey cup. Craving indulged.
Preparation
This was a personal blend created using Tao of Tea’s Yunnan Tippy South Cloud, peppermint, orange peel, and osthmanthus. No idea what I was thinking, but it looked cute. Taste-wise, I can definitely tell you that peppermint was the wrong choice. Spearmint or plain ol’ nana would’ve been the way to go. That said, it holds up well with the “fair” category. Needs work.
For the full story of how “Bob” came to be, read here: http://lazyliteratus.teatra.de/2012/10/13/blending-bob/
Preparation
I received my matcha order & decided I wanted to mix 2 flavours. Hello Cookies & Cream Cheescake.
So I mixed roughly equal part cookies & cream matcha & cheesecake match.
Although I definetly got some sweetness (didn’t add anything), I’m not positive how I feel about this one.
Neither flavour stands out & there is an almost alcohol tasting quality to it. :/ It’s creamy & dessert tasting as well, but not as much as I hoped from other reviews. I dunno, hopefully I have better luck trying them seperately.
I wanted something fall like. We’re getting a little of the backlash from Sandy. It’s cold, windy & rainy.
I wanted fall like but yet something new. I had grabbed Summer Breeze out of the traveling tea box, & it smells very apple like (but more like crab apples, which I had a tree of in my yard when I was growing up). Apples=fall, then I needed spices. So I took my Vanilla Chai from Tea & Bloom. The mix was 1 & 1/2 perfect tsps of each tea. Steeped for about 3 mins.
It’s apple like & a little spicy. I don’t find either flavour is really shinning out, they just kind of meld together & not in a superb way, but just a kind of decent taste.
It does have that slight apple bitter taste that you get from crab apples.
Preparation
A cold came up & smacked me in the face yesterday evening.So this morning I decided to brew up some of Teavana’s Jinga Citrus Twist with some honey… but I though, well I’m super congested and nothing helps that better than my Teaopia’s Peppermint. So I threw in some of that. So basically it was a 3:1 combination (perfect tea spoons). 3 Jinga, 1 Peppermint & about a teaspoon of honey.
Stupid me I forgot the Jinga was a green tea, but I had already boiled the water & poured it over my leaves. Oops. And then I forgot & steeped it nearly 5 minutes.
The peppermint kind of killed the ginger taste, which is great because ginger in tea isn’t my fav. So it had a nice citrusy taste, with a hint of peppermint.
Ahhhh so soothing! It tastes really good & soothed all the symptoms of this cold, the congestion & overall feeling of sickness.
Preparation
Wow – first time tasting matcha I was completely surprised by the flavors. Grassy, vegatal… my first impression was honestly “ick!”. After a few sips though some great nuttiness came out. This has an incredible zing to it. I seriously felt kind of drugged or loopy.
I made a second one with milk to see if I could emphasize the nuttiness and it really did. I kind of like the matcha plain but I love it with milk. I think if I give it time I can get accustomed to having it plain.
Preparation
My very first impression of Matcha was also ick. That was years ago … it can be an acquired taste, it is not something that everyone immediately either likes or dislikes. It took me a few tastings (a couple of years apart even!) before I was able to actually say “Hey, I like matcha!” and mean it. I think this has a lot to do with a couple of things: one … our palate is always changing; and two, I’ve learned a lot more about how different teas requite different approaches to them. Not just in how they’re brewed but also how their appreciated.
That’s a great point. It reminds me of wine tasting… my fiance straight up will not drink white wines but has a great palate for reds. I like both but like you said, it’s a totally different approach. And fruit wines are another story entirely!
I have continued trying this since that tasting and I do think that I am beginning to learn what to appreciate about the matcha. :)
I love pumpkin teas and this morning felt like fall. But I wanted something a little more creamy than the usual Pumpkin Chai from DAVIDsTEA. So here is where it got interesting, I added Pumpkin Creme Brulee!
I brewed about 3/4teaspoon pumpkin chai for 2.5 minutes then added 1/2teaspoon pumpkin creme brulee to it for another 2.5 minutes.
This was delicious. It was a creamy and more subtle pumpkin pie. With all the delicious spices. What a wonderful fall treat!
Preparation
Feeling tropical today, so I mixed some of my Hula Girl Mango Chai mix with some Red Leaf Tea Coconut Matcha. I dissolved the chai mix with a bit of boiling water, chilled it down with lots of ice and topped it off with milk. I then added the matcha and shook the whole concoction to combine.
Annoyingly, the Chai mix took over and I don’t really taste the coconut matcha. Oh well, I tried.
I did this last night and again today with good results
1 part loose chamomile
1 part loose peppermint
2 parts DavidsTea Creme Brulee
The result is a creamy, relaxing, caramelly, slightly minty tea!
And again, I’m chilling out, crocheting a blanket, watching Boys Over Flowers. Occasionally squealing “OPPA!” to my confused husband.
I had to do it. Melon Fruit Salad tea?
Lupicia’s Melon White, with Butiki’s Watermelon Xylophone and Cantaloupe & Cream, equal parts. It was hard to figure out a steep time and such, so I winged it.
Taste? VERY strong melon flavor. I think the Watermelon comes out the most. Oddly, it tastes very melon rindy, like eating a watermelon and that white part. The tea is quite silky with a creamy aftertaste. Overall, very juicy and fun!
Would I do it again? Maybe just the watermelon and honeydew teas, not sure the creamy thrown in there made it straight up fruit salady. Pretty fun though!
Preparation
Probably my most crazy post weight lifting smoothie creations:
1/2tsp Red Leaf Tea Cheesecake Matcha + 1 cup of soy milk + 1 scoop of protein powder + 1/3cup of cottage cheese + 2tsp of Dulce de leche. Long time on the blender to make all the chunks disappear.
the result: thick cheesecakey batter with a Dulce de leche caramel taste! I have leftover Dulce de leche from my wedding, pure will powder I haven’t eaten it all straight out of the can! I added cottage cheese as I found the kraft brand I have tastes more cheesey than I’m used to.
Totally a treat, but I figure I’d celebrate since I just hit my personal record on squats! I remember when I was new at lifting weights, I lifted 100lb less and it was hard!
I was threatening to do this tea concoction for awhile now. I wanted something to wake me up more, but also a treat so I don’t eat the last butter tart in the fridge.
52 Teas Cherry Cheesecake Genmaicha + Red Leaf Teas’ Cheesecake matcha (1/4tsp)
Steeped, it looks like a murky green tea. Smells like the RLT Cheesecake with toasty rice!
Taste… WHOA!!! Cheesecake smoothness, with a bit of cherry sweet above the base of toasty rice taste, green tea and matcha combined. I’m getting a bit of dry throatyness after my sip is complete, so maybe I need to tweak steeping times and temperatures, but overall really good!
My issue with the 52 Teas Cherry Cheesecake genmaicha is it isn’t much cheesecake flavor, but the cheesecake matcha covered it! Yum! Tea peeps, if you have these teas, totally try them together!
Preparation
ARgggggg! I just finish making 4 pies (pumpkin, strawberry lattice top, apple and apple crumble) as well as 2 dozen butter tarts and a batch of nanamio bars for the wedding. Before that happened, I discovered the pipe under the sink broke, so I had to wait until the FIL could fix it before I could start baking.
So, about 6 hours of baking today. After that I needed tea.
Red Leaf Matcha Strawberry + Cheesecake = very tasty. However, I slammed it back so fast I didn’t notice it too much. Pretty much sat there at the dinner table, covered in steaming pies, chugging matcha. Think I need another round of tea.
I’ve been sick for days, but today it is starting to clear up.
Been kinda worried because it was a sinus cold and my sense of taste became bitter for everything! ARGG! So I stopped drinking tea and began crazy creations (straight grated ginger and chili pepper). Today, my sense of taste is returning, but my sense of adventure is still there.
I drank all of my uji genmaicha earlier, so I was thinking of making my own.. if that works.
So… a basic Genmaicha + light dusting of Red Leaf Teas “Raspberry matcha, white matcha” = nutty rice, with a tart bit of raspberry, with a slight astringency from the white matcha. Fun! I think this would of turned out better with a green matcha, but I wanted raspberry.
I suggest others to give this a shot with a flavored matcha!
My next plot: 52 teas Cherry Cheesecake genmaicha + Red Leaf’s “Cheesecake Matcha”
It was simply a matter of time before I would make this:
Sifted cheesecake green matcha + raspberry white matcha (both Red Leaf Teas) + soy milk + sweetener + ice + blender bottle = lazy and amazingly good!
It’s liquid raspberry sauce cheesecake! Creamy, cheesecake tarty and raspberry sweet. No freaky white matcha astringency.
Good amount of froth produced, despite the white matcha anti frothness thanks to the milk and blender bottle. If you have a blender bottle totally try using it for cold matcha drinks!
Preparation
I needed a 3rd matcha today and I didn’t want to crack open the other matcha yet.
I predicted it would be good, 1/2 tsp of Caramel Matcha + 1/2 tsp of Cheesecake Matcha (both from Red Leaf teas) + a tsp of sugar + vanilla soymilk = AMAZING! Cheesecakey caramel yum! I prefer to mix my own creations as I have more control of my tea.
Back to crocheting!
Yesterday, I cleaned and re-arranged my tea cupboard.
I came across and bit of Florence by Harney and Sons.
I remembered it wasn’t my favorite, but then I started thinking “What if…I mixed a bit of it with Almond Cookie by Simpson and Vail”
So, this morning that is what I am doing.
It smells lovely, like some sort of almond delight with a chocolate drizzle on it.
I used about a 2/3 Almond Cookie and a 1/3 Florence.
Taste wise, it is about perfect (for what I had in mind, anyhow)
Almond-y baked goods taste with a rich chocolate drizzle.
Tasty!
Preparation
I awoke this morning feeling creative and wanting to eat one of those fruit filled danishes.You know the ones…with the little sliced almonds on top with a powdered sugar drizzle?
Instead of baking something I decided to create a fruit danish tea instead.
I grabbed Fruits d’Alsace by Harney and Sons and Almond Sugar Cookie by Simpson and Vail.
I went 2/3 Fruits and a 1/3 Almond Sugar Cookie.
Mmmmmmm! Certainly smells like a bakery in the early morn (I should know…I used to work in one;)
I nearly burnt my lip and tongue on this tea, its smelled so tasty that I was having problems waiting till it cooled.
Taste is not quite as “danish-y” as the smell, but still is quite good.
Fruity with almond sweetness on top.
Yummy!
Preparation
Awhile ago I saw a tea by Kusmi that made my heart skip a beat.
It was a Smoky Earl Grey.
I immediately envisioned my rough around the edges Earl but perhaps with a tinge of saddle leather and camp smoke.
Maybe the Earl went a little cowboy?
Anyhow, this tea is out of my budget for a bit.
So, after yesterday when I had Smooth Earl by Compass Teas, I decided this morning to rough up the smoothness a little on this guy, give him five o’clock shadow or something.
So, I added a bit of Lapsang Souchong by Harney and Sons (if you follow my tealogs, this is the LS that I thought was a little too rough)
I thought I could smooth out the rough LS and rough up the smooth Earl.
I smell mainly the LS but there is definitely bergamot in the background.
Taste is the same, LS right up front and then the bergamot.
Not bad, I think achieved a Cowboy Earl.
Preparation
The Earl of Deadwood.
I like it, Jim!
The smoky EG is lovely! I’ve got lots and generally try to keep it around, so if you are interested I can send you a sample. PM me if you are. :)
Oh, Goody! I sent you a PM;)
Have you tried The Earl of Harlem by Ambessa (by Harney and Sons)? It is very nice! I would say five o’clock shadow, unbuttoned white dress shirt, enjoys the opera, but can still keep his seat on a spirited horse even though ot really a cowboy.
I have seen The Earl of Harlem and it is on my list to buy.
I love anything Earl Grey-ish and so always on the look out.
This one sounds intriguing;)
Hesper June: I might have a sachet or two left. PM me your addy. If I do, I will send one on for you to try.
I added Siam Tees Santikhiri Oloong with DMS black Pearl also from siam tees to create a nice iced tea blend, I made it a few time and it is awesome, I’m fact i had some this moring i keep some in the fridge sometimes for something cold in the mornings. Very nice iced tea almost chocolatey :)
Just now I made Iced Tea for Lance, He wanted me to mix two for him so we mixed TC50: Uva BOP and TC54: Sarnia Plaiderie Estate BOP1 both from Upton Tea Imports here is link to both
They are both Ceylon from Sri Lanka just different estates I think.
The Uva estate is one of his favs for Iced Tea and this blend wasn’t bad at all, he likes it a lot.
He says it is Brisk and refreshing with very little astringency :)
http://uptontea.com/shopcart/item.asp?itemID=TC50&from=search.asp
Ooh. I’m interested. I’ll shoot you a PM with my e-mail. You may also want to post this one the steepster message boards so more people see it.
I thought about that, but I didn’t want it to be “non-tea spam”. I wonder if people would mind?