Journaling January: Tea
Jan. 7th, 2021 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kraitA prompt from flowersforgraves: How did you get into tea?
I have talked a bit about this in a post last year, but essentially: I've always drunk tea in some form or another, but it became a staple of my life when I was in college the first time. Tea was caffeinated, inexpensive, easily made in a dorm room with just a hot pot to heat water (I used a Pyrex 2-cup measuring cup as a teapot!) and as a bonus had a range of strengths and flavours to prevent boredom.
I've lived in all kinds of climates, and drank tea in all of them. :D (One of my RL friends has expressed disbelief at my willingness to drink hot tea when it's 95 degrees out and we're watching shows with the fan on high.)
The first time I mixed my own tea was during my second college experience. The co-op in that town sold a very nice prebagged black tea with rose petals... right up until it didn't. I don't know if the brand itself stopped producing that flavour, or if the co-op just stopped carrying it, but either way I decided I wasn't going to give up one of my favourite teas so easily. My habit of reading product packaging came in handy, as it meant I knew what was in the tea. That same co-op carried bulk rose petals, and the international market a block away carried rose flavour; into an old tea tin they went with some looseleaf English Breakfast (I think - it might have been Assam). Vigourous shaking and some patience later, I had a beautiful replacement for my rose tea!
After that it was just a matter of time before I began trying other combinations. I think my second project was recreating a lavender-rosemary Earl Grey that I'd tried early on in my tea-drinking days and loved a lot. I branched out from there! Useful herbs and florals are generally easy to acquire if one has a co-op or international market; a few things, like violet flavour, I've ordered from online sources, but most of my supplies are acquired locally.
This year I'm thinking about teaching myself how to make my own extracts and flavours, to expand my options. I've got an enormous honeysuckle vine in my backyard, for instance, and I have elderflower and elderberry all round me. (I make elderberry jam nearly every year.) It opens up more exotic options, too, if I plan far enough ahead to choosing herbs to plant in spring!
flowersforgraves: How did you get into tea?I have talked a bit about this in a post last year, but essentially: I've always drunk tea in some form or another, but it became a staple of my life when I was in college the first time. Tea was caffeinated, inexpensive, easily made in a dorm room with just a hot pot to heat water (I used a Pyrex 2-cup measuring cup as a teapot!) and as a bonus had a range of strengths and flavours to prevent boredom.
I've lived in all kinds of climates, and drank tea in all of them. :D (One of my RL friends has expressed disbelief at my willingness to drink hot tea when it's 95 degrees out and we're watching shows with the fan on high.)
The first time I mixed my own tea was during my second college experience. The co-op in that town sold a very nice prebagged black tea with rose petals... right up until it didn't. I don't know if the brand itself stopped producing that flavour, or if the co-op just stopped carrying it, but either way I decided I wasn't going to give up one of my favourite teas so easily. My habit of reading product packaging came in handy, as it meant I knew what was in the tea. That same co-op carried bulk rose petals, and the international market a block away carried rose flavour; into an old tea tin they went with some looseleaf English Breakfast (I think - it might have been Assam). Vigourous shaking and some patience later, I had a beautiful replacement for my rose tea!
After that it was just a matter of time before I began trying other combinations. I think my second project was recreating a lavender-rosemary Earl Grey that I'd tried early on in my tea-drinking days and loved a lot. I branched out from there! Useful herbs and florals are generally easy to acquire if one has a co-op or international market; a few things, like violet flavour, I've ordered from online sources, but most of my supplies are acquired locally.
This year I'm thinking about teaching myself how to make my own extracts and flavours, to expand my options. I've got an enormous honeysuckle vine in my backyard, for instance, and I have elderflower and elderberry all round me. (I make elderberry jam nearly every year.) It opens up more exotic options, too, if I plan far enough ahead to choosing herbs to plant in spring!