Mmm, tea and ponderings...

I'm enjoying my first cup of Darjeeling tea, from SpecialTeas. It's called Margaret's Hope. This is from their website:

Once again, Margaret's Hope has produced an outstanding second flush with sought-after muscatel flavor. The wonderfully tippy leaves infuse to a medium- bodied cup with a ripe fruity aroma reflected in the rich flavor. A great example of a classic second flush with a pronounced muscatel finish.

Hehe, not sure what it all means, but it IS delicious with a bit of milk and sugar. I think it's a tea that would work very well with slightly sweet accompaniments, like shortbread cookies (The real Scottish ones, not the American made Pecan Sandies sort).

My next tea will be an Assam.

I think, when I actually reach 50 followers on my Blogger blog, I'll hold a contest. Not sure what the contest will be just yet, but I already have the prize. =) I have plenty of time to decide though as I only have  21 followers.

I'm halfway through chapter four on my new WIP and going through "Dead of Night" to reacquaint myself with it before I start writing on it again. I may end up deleting a good portion of it to take it back to a point where I still liked writing it. Somehow, I reached a point where I'm fighting myself on it and I put it away, disgusted.

I finished an interview with Lux Zakari via email. I'll report when I hear it's been posted to their site. =)

Other than that, I have an interview with Sandra Sookoo in May.

I want to redo my Blogger but I don't know how to do their templates. Bleh. That's one thing I don't like about Blogger, and before everyone sends me links to online Blogger template generators, won't work for me. They confuse the hell out of me. I like creating my own via FrontPage. I even have a program called Artisteer that does Blogger, but I can't even stand using that. Too confusing and too limited. Course, I'm still learning to play with it as well, so we'll see.

I love my Twitter profile page. I want to use that for my Blogger and my website, but can't figure out how.

I've reposted my novellas on Literotica. Still in unedited form, so it's pretty rough. Eventually, I'll get around to editing those. LOL.

Ok, back to tea and writing. =)

Tea Review...

I ordered some tea from a company called SpecialTeas last week and it came today via UPS.

We wanted to try Rooibos teas, which is known as Red Tea and is naturally decaffeinated, which is a good thing!

The package contained a shipping slip, a catalog, and a little card. Then, beneath those were the tea packages.



I ordered a few 1/2 packets of various teas to try out and then a sample pack of the rooibos teas.

These are the sample packets. They are 1/2 oz samples of:

Black tea - Caramel with Caramel Pieces
Rooibos White Chocolate Toffee
Rooibos Chocolate-Mint
Rooibos Earl Grey
Harvest Fest - A bountiful blend of rooibos, pineapple, mango and papaya bits, coconut and almond, walnut, peanut and hazelnut bits.
Cocoa Cardamom Tango - Full-leaf black tea with a decadent blend of cocoa bits, cardamom pods and cinnamon.
Black tea - Chocolate Cream with Cocoa Pieces
After Dark Herbal Melange - Relaxing herbal melange with orange/chamomile flavor. Contains citrus peels, rose-hip peels, chamomile flowers, orange blossoms, lemon grass, nana-mint and hibiscus.
Black teas - English Breakfast Blend
Lapsang Souchong Superior - Carefully cured in the smoke of fragrant Chinese pinewood, this superior quality Lapsang is deeply aromatic and uniquely flavorful. Its smoky characteristics and smooth taste compare to those of a single malt Scotch.

The Rooibos sample pack came in a little cardboard box.

Inside were:

Rooibos Chai - Rooibos with chai spices - cinnamon, lemongrass, vanilla and ginger

Green Rooibos Key Largo - Fresh, light taste with a sweet, fruity character

Rooibos Capetown - Rooibos with hibiscus blossoms, rose petals, blue mallow blossoms and sunflower petals

Rooibos Vanilla - Rooibos and finest grade Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla

Rooibos Orange - Rooibos blended with orange blossoms and critus peels

We opened up the Rooibos Orange. It smelled WONDERFUL...

You can see the opened packet there, the rooibos tea mixed with dried blossoms and citrus peels.

On the front of the packet, it had the ingredients and the brewing instructions.





Don't mind my ugly tea pot. It's a casual use Asian teapot, which I don't like, but did not want to drag out my silver one.

ANYWAY...

Here I put 1 teaspoon per person and then 1 teaspoon "for the pot" which was not the instructions, but my way of making tea.

I let it steeps for a few minutes then poured it.

Don't mind the mess on my counter.

Two cups of rooibos orange in my tea cups, one for my daughter and one for myself.

I rather liked it. Unsweetened, it was nice, not too strong, not too weak, with faint orange hints. Sweetened, it gave it a nice flavor to sip alone or with lightly sweetened treats.

The next one we try will be the Rooibos Earl Grey. =)