Tea Tank

Utopia Tea had a promotion a few weekends ago where every third order would receive extra tea, movie tickets, and a restaurant-style teapot. I guess I was in a promotion-y mood as I recall thinking, “OMG YEAH! FREE STUFF!”, before pulling out my credit card. I’m not hard to please – sometimes. Just goes to show that free shit (or a chance at free shit, sadly) might be enough to move you up on my purchase list. Free shit’s always better. Utopia was probably sixth in line. Turns out I won, so all’s well. Except for the chamomile. I don’t know about the chamomile. (more…)

The past few nights I’ve been trying to make friends with Utopia Tea’s vanilla chamomile blend. It came in the mail last week, was the first I opened from my order, and I still can’t find a way to dig it. I’ve got a few options left but I need a night off. Raiding the recesses of my cupboard produced Stash’s Chamomile Nights – an old standby from back in the day when my doctors were full of fail and didn’t know what else to do about my insomnia. It wasn’t successful, but it was my first introduction to tea brands other than the ones in my grandmother’s cupboard. She enjoys a good Lipton, so Stash, Tazo and the like were an improvement over what I grew up with. I love my grandma but I could never love Lipton. (more…)

Summary of today:

- “Nnnnnnnnng…”

- “Need caffeine……….”

- “Find black tea.”

You found Himalayan Majestic!

Proceeded to make and drink caffeine, followed by passing out on the lounge chair outside in the sun.

Just one of those days… (more…)

I picked up this tea looking for a good sickness remedy. Seems fitting that about a week after the tea arrived, I had a massive cold. The kind where you just want to lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling and hope your head doesn’t explode and the nausea doesn’t escalate. If your head explodes while you’re nauseous, would you vomit too? Then you’d have like, fountains of blood and vomit. That’s like a double rainbow…

Regardless, the tea actually proved beneficial while I was sick. My taste buds were on hiatus so there wasn’t much tasting going on. Only the ginger and some sweetness came through. Today my buds are perfectly functioning and I can actually taste/smell the rest of the tea. (more…)

It’s a perfectly blah day outside. Perfectly blah Monday. Time for some effortless, better-than-blah black tea. I often scoff at teabags but they certainly have a place in my cupboard, especially for days like today where I’ve got a mad case of the blahs and don’t feel like doing anything. Even measuring tea is a tremendous expense of energy today and you can forget about cleaning out used leaves post-brew. Boiling water is almost beyond me today. No, today is time for a good bagged tea – simple, bold, and black. So very black. (more…)

I wanted to inaugurate the blog with one of my favorite teas of late. Something that would be easy to rave about. Also something to just improve my day, as I have had many days of suck with what is going on five weeks of intense shoulder rehab as well as all of my tomato transplants dying this week after a heavy rain, as well as someone killing my volunteer butterfly bushes thinking they were weeds. Goodie. This is one of those teas that I drink because I love me, and I deserve delicious things every so often. It makes me smile and go to a happy place, like a good scotch. Mmm… scotch… (more…)