mercredi 20 juillet 2011

Minnesota? Traditional Medicinals: Organic Bancha

Sometimes when I'm at college, my grandmother sends me care packages. She's a wonderful woman, with great taste. I don't think in my whole life she's ever given me a gift I didn't love. She also happends to consistently pick winners in the tea she sends me. (Which is more than can be said for my mother...but more on that comedy another time!)




I usually avoid bagged green tea like the devil. I'm pretty sure the increased surface area causes more tannin to be released more quickly into the water, resulting in a bitter, over-steeped tasted, even if you've only had the bag submerged for a minute or two. But sometimes I want a quick cup of green, without leaves/strainer to clean up.
Side note: I had no idea things mold so easily in the East! In my Colorado hometown, I leave a strainer lying on a dish until it is dry, as this facilitates clean-up. I did this my first week at college, and was shocked to find that two days later it was not only still wet, but moldy! Lesson learned!

This green tea is the bright green color that I've come to expect from Japanese green tea, and was frustrated not to find in cups at home during my tragic Celestial Seasonings* green childhood. If you look at the bag after a cup or two, you will find that the leaves are actually slightly larger than your standard tea-bag leaves, perhaps a manifestation of Traditional Medicinal's pharmacopoeial-grade herbs. This tea doesn't become horribly bitter, even when over-steeped, and makes a pretty nice cup or two, per bag. It doesn't have a lot of body to it, like you get when brewing loose-leaf green, but it is a great quick-fix. If you bring tea in your purse like I do, I'd definitely recommend carrying around a pack or two of this.

Oddly enough, TM's website no longer lists this tea. Instead we have "Golden Green Tea," on the American site. Though if you look at the Canadian French version, it is still called Bancha. I'm almost out of my Bancha, so I will try to get my hands on some "Golden Green" to see if they're the same.

Anyone else drink TM tea? I swear by their "Organic Lemon Echinacea Throat Coat" when I'm sick.



mardi 19 juillet 2011

Florence: Tisana Della Buonanotte

Okay, it is a tisane, not a tea.



Ingredients: (courtesy of wordreference.com)
Hawthorn
Lime blossom
Lemon balm
Passionflower
Orange blossom
Marigold
Petals of wild poppies

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After going to Morocco, I made a point of buying a tea in every country I visited while in Europe, so I was very excited to find this tisane in Florence. I think it cost me three euros at the market in the Piazza Santo Spirito. (Here's a shout-out to Gusto Panini in the same piazza, the best and cheapest place to get lunch in Florence!)


I didn't end up opening this until I got back to America the following month. Would I have brought it with me if I had? I doubt it! The liquor is a cloudy purpleish black and it tastes extremely earthy. As in, the earth. Maybe I'm just not preparing it properly? I'm keeping it around for now in hopes that I find out something that will make it magically turn delicious.


lundi 18 juillet 2011

Tea is my boyfriend.

Yep, that's right. We've been dating for, gee, about 13 years now, I guess. I'm not quite sure when we started seeing each other, but we are childhood sweethearts!

"_____ is my boyfriend" is a phrase I've used since high school to describe how much I love something. My other steady boyfriend is "eggs." I have a steady human boyfriend too, and since he also loves tea and eggs, I think he's alright with being the newest addition to this polyamorous relationship ;)

I like reading blogs, but never succeeded in keeping up with any of the ones I've tried to make. But this time, I shall not fail!

From Tea is my Boyfriend