I had a lovely surprise on Saturday morning. Through my letterbox, along with the inevitable bits of rubbish and a bill, came a plain white envelope addressed to me. Inside, were three teabags.
Now, this may not seem like anything especially amazing, but I was half expecting them and I was delighted. You see, I follow the blog of Jane Wenham-Jones – the author of Wannabe a Writer and Wannabe a Writer we’ve ever Heard Of, amongst other things. Fiction as well. She’s very nice, if a bit mad, which suits me fine – no rude comments out there! If you pop over and see her blog, you’ll not only discover someone well worth reading, but also that she has been given a load of teas to try from the lovely ‘tea-temple’ people, TeaPigs. I have only had their green tea before, but it is lovely and I was delighted to read that she was planning to give some of these little gems away. First up were the minty ones, which she had decided she didn’t like at all.
Now, I don’t have dairy, which means I have to drink black tea or put something else in there, like soya milk or rice milk and I don’t like it straight or with any of that other stuff. It just doesn’t taste the same. Vile, ugh. So I gave up ordinary tea, the English Breakfast sort, when I gave up dairy. (Migraine trigger, if you’re wondering). These days I drink the weirder sorts of tea. Fruit infusions, green teas, herby mixtures and mint tea. The best I ever drank was when I was invited to take tea by the Bedouins in the desert in Jordan. Minty, herby and yes, quite sweet, but not as sweet as the sort they serve up to the tourists. At home, I make do with a peppermint teabag in a cup.
Anyway, back to Jane Wenham-Jones: She decided she didn’t like the mint teas and offered them in her blog. Yay! I leapt in the air, jiggled a bit with delight – well, OK, not quite, but I did compose a quick comment and emailed her and hooray! – the teas arrived on Saturday.
I couldn’t wait to try them. So this week-end was a bit of a tea-fest.
How about liquorice and mint? No, don’t knock it. It was really good. I know it sounds peculiar, but I was surprised. There was a very slight tang of liquorice and of peppermint, but not much. It was just a lovely cosy cuppa. Warming. Because I’m frugal (OK, I admit it, a bit tight), I kept the teabag and gave it another bash with the boiling water. It made a great second cup too.
Later in the day, I gave a whirl to the ‘tummy tonic’ peppermint leaves, which were also very good and so was the Green tea with peppermint, with which you also get the caffeine hit as well. The last one did two cups too, but that’s because I’m a bit woossy with my green tea and don’t like it very strong.
I took a look at the TeaPigs site as well, which is worth the peep. They have this thing called a mood-o-meter so you can decide what sort of mood/state you’re in and choose your tea accordingly. Reviews on the site varied enormously and a couple of people said the liquorice and mint one was far too sweet, but most agreed with me that it was gorgeous. It’s supposed to give that warming feeling and is good for sore throats apparently.
So that was my tea-fest.
How about you – do you enjoy the rush of English Breakfast or do you mix and match the joys of the infusions world? Or are you a coffee freak who wouldn’t touch tea of any sort with the button of your mouse?
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