How about sipping a cup of Happy Halloween blend tea (black tea, cloves, ginger root, cardamom pods, cocoa nibs, orange peel and more) from Adagio Teas on fright night?
Munching a yummy piece of pumpkin bread with the tea, while hubby hands out the loot to the trick or treaters, sounds lovely too.
Every day is oatmeal day for me during the fall and winter. I happen to really like it and that’s a good thing since it is said to reduce cholesterol. My Doctor even told me that “he’d kill for a cholesterol level like mine”, so maybe it works! ☺
Apple-Cinnamon Tea Oatmeal
For one serving:
3 pinches of ground tea leaves (any kind you like)
1 tablespoon chopped almonds
1/4 cup of chopped apples
ground cinnamon
Prepare the oatmeal as per package directions. Add the dry tea and top with the almonds and apples. Dust with cinnamon.
This recipe is from the book “The Ultimate Tea Diet” by Mark Ukra. You can check it out here.
Finally, there is a word to describe the growing problem of people paying more attention to their cell phone than to other people.
Obviously, many people find phubbing to be very annoying. Now a small group (meeting at the Sydney University in Australia) have coined this new word and it has made its way into legitimacy by being added to the Macquarie dictionary and into common usage.
My experience with phubbing is mostly through family members, but I would now politely ask a friend or acquaintance to stop phubbing me if the need arose. What about you - how do you deal with this 21st century phenomenon?
There is even a stop phubbing campaign that has gained a lot of media attention.
Let’s hope that phubbing has not crept into and spoiled your enjoyment of afternoon tea time.
Recently, I received some tea samples from Tea Horse in the UK. My selection included Darjeeling 1st Flush Margaret’s Hope, Sencha Fukujyu and G & T Blend.
Since I’m a lifetime black tea lover, I tried the Darjeeling first. I eased up on the water temp (suggested 95 degrees C) and steeped for three minutes. I’m used to drinking my black tea with milk and find that without it my throat is irritated). Since the label said “ideal to enjoy without milk” I gave it a try. What a pleasant surprise. The tea was smooth and delicious without milk. This Darjeeling is a very enjoyable cup of tea.
Since I recently purchased a hot or cold tea jug, I decided to put it to use by making iced Sencha Fukujyu (Japan’s most popular steamed green tea). Following the label directions I let boiled water cool for five minutes and then brewed the tea for one minute. I added a little honey and then poured the tea into my ice filled jug. It was not overly grassy and certainly not bitter. The flavor was lovely, even with such a short steep. I steeped the leaves for a second pot with equally tasty results.
The third tea, G & T Blend (shown above) is quite different to anything I’ve tried. It is made with Sencha, but also includes juniper berries, coriander seed, cardamom, angelica root and lemon peel for a gin inspired flavor. I’m not finished tasting this one yet and I think I need to crush the berries more next time before infusing the tea.
You can visit their tea shop to find taster boxes, accessories and more and they also have a blog.
