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Tea Obsession


Tea
Originally uploaded by cathy.ikeda
I absolutely hate water. Mostly because, well, it just tastes like. . .water. But in WW (weight watchers), part of the program, and my weekly challenge to myself, is to drink water. . . LOTS of it per day (6 - 8 cups). Most people can drink that amount in the morning, but I could last on that amount for the whole week. My body is used to being dehydrated. It's my training method for survival in case of nuclear disaster and the water supplies are contaminated. They say that humans will die within several days without water, but my finely honed, water-starved body can last for months.
Anyway, since I have to drink "water," I drink lots of tea (one cup equals 1/2 cup of water because of the caffeine). This is my latest tea obsession flavor and I drink lots of it because the stuff I tend to like usually is seasonal or on its way out. This vanilla caramel truffle comes in these cool pyramid shaped loose tea bags and they smell heavenly, like caramels. I put about half a packet of Splenda and yummy! It's like drinking tea and candy.
The only down side of this is that the pyramid bags are loosely woven so that the black tea tends to come out of it (just the dust), so the box needs to be stored in a quart ziploc. When you get it at the store, it's wrapped in plastic and you see the tea dust on the outside. It looks like termite droppings or something, which is not appealing for consumers, which is why I believe my tea will most likely be discontinued. But for now, it's usually on sale at Safeway (probably owing to the unappealing nature of the tea spilling out). They do have other flavors of tea spilling out boxes like mandarin orange with real mandarin orange pieces in the tea bags, but the vanilla caramel is the one to try before it goes away.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Tea...the enjoyment of it has become a science for the Brits and the Japanese. There must be something to it to sit through three hours of a tea ceremony, nibbling on dainty tidbits, and then hoping one can stand up and walk those oxygen deprived legs after sitting hiza all that time!!

In my small plantation town, tea was more rustic. Japanese boxes held genmai, or hojicha. The Japanese immigrants also grew a plant in their gardens which yielded a seed pod. The seeds were roasted and made into a tea. It was delicious. In fact, the Garden Guy's article in the Hawaii Tribune Herald talked about his kind of tea.

My dad talked about making teas from different plants in the days when he was so poor to purchase tea was not an option.

There must be something that goes beyond tea as a hot beverage but rather a warmer of the soul.

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