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Good morning—-absolutely nothing to say other than sounding a barbaric YAWP! This is banana season at work under normal circumstances; even more so trying to open the school year sensibly and safely. So I need no-frills tea I can neglect, abuse, guzzle, ice down, mismanage, steep with my eyes closed, and forget in the fridge for three days. This is it. Looking forward to the good stuff later!

Sipdown this morning. And even the dregs of this abused, neglected, and elderly packet were delicious. I am still confounded by how a mix of Darjeeling and Yunnan—with no additional flavor, I believe—can taste like pastry.

Well, thank you very much, you influencers, you … I mentioned it casually to my husband, and he kindly picked up a box. I ripped into it this morning because I am definitely in need of a little thunder. (In our part of the world school will be opening, so it’s been Katy-bar-the-door at work.)

The way I steeped it (sloppily, maybe 6 minutes), the mate reminds me a little of burnt campfire marshmallow crust. That’s not a bad thing to wake up to.

Next up in the Summer-Use-Up-Scraps marathon: a nameless coconut-puerh blend. I am going to have to ask the work friend who gave me a couple ounces where this came from, as I like it very much. Despite its age (don’t ask, I don’t know ;) the coconut hasn’t yet gone south. Due to the strength of the coconut flavor, the puerh comes through as chocolate, not cave rocks. Final analysis: a melted Mounds candy bar.

What’s left of my packet had woogled down to the bottom of the odds and ends basket (you have one of those, don’t you?) so I didn’t expect too much in the way of flavor and freshness when I steeped a tumbler this morning. Not so—it was still pastry-like and tasty, even more so when I iced it. Makes me think of a cream puff that’s been in the fridge. Oh…now I AM thinking about cream puffs…and frosting…and cookie dough…and…

When it get this hot and humid (when you step outside the moisture just envelops you like a hot wet fur shirt), I don’t much care what I’m drinking as long as it is cold. This causes me to be a little sloppy with my beverage concoctions. Over the past couple of days, we’ve tried refrigerator alchemy with:

Red Rose tea with mint and a splunk of sassafrass concentrate

Some embarrassingly old loose leaf pu-erh, gone halvesies with Loyd blackberry/blueberry herbal

Surprisingly, neither were terrible and would have some potential if I paid attention to the prep.

What kinds of crazy things are you schlopping together to stay cool?