Happiness is...

Happiness is...a good stash of tea. 

There's a different tea for different moments.

Need a wake-me-up tea? Try breakfast tea or assam.

Craving something warm but it's almost time for bed? Try chamomile or an herbal tea.

Hot and you're parched? Try a watermelon cooler or watermelon, lime, and basil iced blend. 

(These are new for me.)

Have an upset stomach? Try something with ginger (I like lemongrass ginger.)

I get most of my tea from the tea shop up the road a piece. Every month I send them $16 and they send me four bags of organic loose leaf tea. By the end of the year, I will have tried all of their 52 flavors of tea. 

Cheers!

Tea All About It

It's tea time! Go out in your yard, pick some of those abundant yellow dandelions, boil some water, and sip. Oh well, wash the flowers off first.

No this is not an April Fools' Day prank. Dandelion tea is actually quite scrumptious and basically free! It reminds me of summer in a cup: warm, sweet, vibrant, and green. Apparently the flowers also contain Vitamin A and Vitamin B12, which are both good vitamins to have I suppose. You can make tea from other parts of this flower, but so far I have only tried the flowers. It sure does make for a pretty cup of tea.

Other types of tea that I have been drinking include Pomegranate, Pear, and Ginger, Earl Grey Bravo (extra bergamot), Dragon Well (totally unsure what's in this one but I think it's green), VitaWell (still unsure what's in this one), Lemongrass and Ginger (yum!), Yellow and Blue (chamomile), and good old English Breakfast. Most of my teas come from the local tea shop or Harney and Sons online. I drink mainly loose leaf and I try to let the tea leaves float as much as I can, but sometimes I do use a tea ball or some sort of contraption like that if I'm on the go.

Just recently I purchased a nifty little contraption called Mrs. Tea. Apparently the product's production was discontinued, but The Farmer's Daughter found it at a Goodwill for $5. Worth a try right?

This morning I enjoyed three cups of English Breakfast all by pushing one button. I think the thing I will like most about this is that I can prepare the machine the night before and then let the tea brew and steep while I get ready. It takes about 10 minutes to steep an entire pot. I was skeptical that it would not be as strong as I like since the water drips over the tea rather than the tea sitting in the water, but I didn't notice a difference. Another plus is that it's an easier mess to clean that tea leaves floating in a pot or crammed into a tea ball. Since it uses a filter, I just grab the paper filter and throw the whole bit away once I've used all the goodness in the tea leaves. I also really like the cute design although I do wish it wasn't entirely white (that may be changing soon). I will still probably do some tea by boiling water in my tea kettle and then steeping in a teapot or mug, but some mornings it will be nice to have the convenience of pushing a button just like all of those coffee drinkers have.

Cheers!

Day 14: Hot Drink

He's already made an appearance for the presents post, but here's my little friend doing his job.

My hot drink of choice today was Rooibus tea. It's light and slightly rooty tasting.

Doesn't he just look so peaceful there taking a dip in the hot liquid?

A Beautiful Rainy Day

Today was a beautiful day, even though it was rainy and I had to get up early. I agreed to sub for Olivia, my brother's girlfriend who teaches at Madison Central. Since it decided to not snow this time, I actually got to sub for her today. I was a bit nervous when I woke up since it was only my second sub job, the first time I've taught in a high school since Thanksgiving, and Madison Central is huge. My first sub job was at a middle school and I was utterly bored since the student teacher did everything. Today was totally different without being overwhelming. Olivia was still in the building; she just had to run the sound in the auditorium all day for an event. She met me at the front office and showed me around the building. Since she's the assistant choir director, she has classes in a couple different classrooms. It was fun to be in front of a classroom again even if I couldn't do direct instruction since I don't know music theory well enough. Some of the students were friendly, even. I especially appreciated that Madison Central has thirty minutes set aside each day for what they call Silent Sustained Reading. In theory it's a great idea to encourage students to read. If I were a teacher, I would use that time to read to my class, but since it wasn't my class I had to follow the protocol of letting the students read a book or their phone as long as they were quiet. It really saddens me that most of the students chose to browse the internet on their phones rather than read. I wonder what our society is coming to when students just don't love reading because they are so attached to their phones and devices. But that's a rant for another day. I just take solace in the fact that one student read a real book out of the 15 in the class.

After school I visited Four Sister's Tea Emporium and Soap Shop. It smelled wonderful when I walked in. I liked that it wasn't crowded in there like coffee shops generally are. Kudos to Martha S. for the recommendation. I was going to go back to Purdy's but I have a feeling that it was crawling with high schoolers at that hour since I know I heard a group from Central talking about going there after school. This little shop and tea room was perfect to have some tea and read. I enjoyed a chai tea latte made with real chai tea instead of that nasty powdered stuff that coffee shops tend to serve. Maybe it's the tea snob in me but I appreciated that they had at least 30 varieties of tea without any coffee selection. I have nothing against coffee drinkers, but I always feel a bit jipped when I go to a coffee shop with friends and have no choice for tea or am only offered a store bought tea bag and water for the price of an entire box of tea bags at the store. (I will give Purdy's that. They do have a small selection of loose leaf tea, but I didn't appreciate that my tea was room temperature when I got it there.) I was alone but it was a pleasant experience. I imagine it would be more pleasant with friends. Also a plus was that the tea is all organic and fair-trade. I know those are words thrown around to attract people these days, but it still sounds nice whether it's true or not.

Now I'm going to curl up with a book and maybe a movie for the night. (I heard recently that your health improves if you can read for at least 30 minutes a day without any technology distractions. Who knows if it's true but I like the theory!)