Monday, September 16, 2013

Tea





I get to the end of the day and often find myself surrounded by mugs. I love tea.  I feel like most days should come with the buyline 'Brought to you by tea'.


I don't drink caffeine. It just doesn't agree with me. I'm a naturally jumpy person and any caffeine at all makes my day pretty uncomfortable. People used to joke about inviting me out for coffee or 'equivalent beverage'. I thought I'd just run through my current favourite 'alternative beverages'.

Peppermint tea - I am really liking Red Seal Peppermint Lemon tea. I like drinking peppermint tea, it's my wake-up drink but a while ago I got so sick of it. I don't know why, I just got to the point where I couldn't face another cup, then Brent accidentally bought the Peppermint and Lemon tea form the supermarket and I really liked it. I add lemon to a lot of hot drinks but it never occurred to me to add it to peppermint. It's nice and I'm looking forward to drinking it iced when summer finally gets here.

Dandelion coffee - this is my new favourite thing. I've started having it before I eat breakfast with lemon juice. I am a very big bitter fan. I'm not sure dandelion coffee is exactly bitter, like lemon bitter, but it has a really nice, yes, almost coffee, taste to it. Last time I went on a dandelion coffee binge I added soya milk but this time I've just loved drinking it straight with lemon juice. My friends Zef and Sarah made dandelion coffee a couple of years back and I might give that a go this year. In the mean time Golden Fields do a great dandelion coffee bag and also a really nice Chai.

Inca - when I started drinking Inka and it's cousin Caro Brent and I thought it was hilarious. 'The 1980s called and they want their beverage back!' I got it because I was hanging out for a milky warm drink. These two chicory-based granulated drinks fit the bill perfectly. It's funny how many people drink it.

Red African Fire Rooibos - the other day at university I was hanging out for a milky tea (you can see a pattern here, eh?) and I went to the cafe on campus and got a t leaf Tea Red African Fire Rooibus - I can't stop thinking about it. It was such a nice mixture of rooibus and orange.

Puku Love Tea - for a long time my favourite night time drink was Puku Love Tea . I'm not a huge fan of fruit teas and I find licorice tea a bit overwhelming but this is just the most wonderful subtle blend of these kind of tastes.


Having said I don't particularly like licorice tea, I do think Red Seal Black Adder would make a great ice tea. Also, while we were in the States I got a Stash sample which had a couple of bags of Licorice Spice tea which was really good. It was a totally different taste to Black Adder - could it be the sarsaparilla? I really liked it. No one seems to import it to New Zealand. Some of stores here stock other Stash teas and writing this has made me think I might contact them and see if they would consider bringing in the Licorice Spice tea too.

One tea that I tried recently which sits full and is brought out mainly for hilarity is the new Healtheries Lemon Meringue Pie tea. It smells unbelievable. I was kind of excited when I unwrapped it because Lemon Meringue Pie is something I haven't had since I became vegan. My head raced at the possibilities (there is a Strawberry Pavlova Tea in the range as well). But, as you can imagine, the full taste sensation of a lemon meringue pie cannot be packaged in a single tea bag. Science may one day accomplish this but it hasn't done so yet. It wasn't bad, it tasted a bit 'flavoured' but it wasn't that bad, but I think if I wanted that kind of taste I should have stuck with the good old-fashioned science of Hazer Baba Turkish Apple Tea.

Writing this has made me thirsty.

Cheers!

Oh, I just noticed my photo has a subtle piece of advertising in it for Light Perceptions, a beautiful art installation which is on at the moment. If you're in Wellington it's well worth a look. It includes a very interesting work by Rebekah Rasmussen.





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