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Sunday I wrote about my Tuesday Tea Time, and intended to post that on Tuesday, however my blonde was showing and I ended up posting it early.

Silly me.

Now that it’s Tuesday I can finally say it’s Tuesday Tea Time!



Today I am drinking the Sour Apple herbal tea I ordered from Adagio. I’ve gotten this before and I honestly forgot how much I enjoy this stuff. The last time I ordered I only got the sample, and that’s enough for someone to figure out if they like it.
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This past week was a waiting game for me. After spending so much time not buying things for myself and focusing on the nitty gritty of life, I decided to be a wild child and order some new teas from my favorite loose tea company: Adagio.

Granted, they are my favorite since they are the only people I have really ordered tea from online. However, I have yet to be disappointed.

If you remember before, I posted about some samples a few years ago about my very first order from Adagio. I decided I needed to clean out my tea cabinet and found the little sample tins again. Sadly, I used up all the herbal ones and only had the caffeinated ones still. I had to really cut caffeine out of my life and so those are not going to get used.

It’s rather a good thing that I didn’t use them anyways since they were 4 years old! Loose herbal or mixed teas should last about 6 months according to my research, and up to 12 months for good quality pure tea.

They are long past their use by dates! Yuck. I’m sure they would be perfectly safe to consume but who knows.

So I ordered my tea and had to wait all the way to the weekend for it to arrive. I admit to going a little crazy with the ordering, but I was so excited to finally spend money on myself that I just couldn’t resist getting ALL the samples that I’ve been curious about plus larger sizes of the teas I loved from last time. I was so excited when the husband and I went to pick up the mail.

However I was not so excited to see this big rip in the box.



Luckily all of my tea was inside and nothing appeared to be missing or damaged. I wasn’t so sure at first since the inside of the box faintly smelled of fruit, but that could just be the bags themselves or maybe some scent from the warehouse? Everything is perfect and in order. Yay tea!



So here’s what I got:
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I cracked open the apple pie moonshine this weekend, and man it is good!

This stuff is dangerous. I know I made it with Everclear, but I really thought that it would be diluted with all the juice I added to it. So imagine my surprise when I cracked it open after 3 weeks and found it so strong!

But of course it had to come from the loving husband that I forgot to take in to account the fact that the juice would likely ferment as well and increase the percentage of alcohol. I used a hand dandy online calculator when I made it, and it said that at the time of mixing it would be roughly 30 proof (16%-ish alcohol).

However, what I ended up with is more akin to jet fuel than a slightly strong cocktail! Wowza it is strong!

Don’t fill your glass this full. If I drank this whole glass, I would be laying on the floor and drooling. I would maybe fill a shot glass and sip it, than have a full glass.

Then again, I am a huge lightweight when it comes to drinking.

I really like the flavor. It turned out a little strong in the cinnamon, so next time I make it I would not leave the cinnamon sticks in it (I actually removed the sticks after the bottles sat a few days in the pantry, if I would have waited any longer then it would be way too overpowering and undrinkable in my opinion).

I now want to start experimenting with other types of infused alcohols. I’ve done a lot of reading and I think I could make some really awesome concoctions. Mango infused tequila anyone?

Mmm…

I am not a person that drinks a lot, mostly because I’m rather new to drinking. I can’t hold my alcohol, and it takes maybe half of a drink for me to get that nice relaxed feeling.

Recently my coworker saw one of the Moonshiners shows, and on there they made an apple pie moonshine.

He was instantly obsessed.
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So this is my fist foray into the loose leaf tea business as well as into an Oolong. This was one of the many that came in my sampler pack I bought.

Name: Almond Oolong

Company: Adagio Teas

Type: Oolong

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I need a vacation.

I know it almost feels like I’ve taken a vacation from writing but it’s more along the lines that I just haven’t had the energy to. I’ve spent all my time and energy concentrating on work, training people, working overtime, and working with the Husband at a Retro Gaming Expo. (I shudder to think of all the pictures/video of me running around the net right now)

(And no I’m not sharing links)

I haven’t spent much time with cooking lately, but there really hasn’t been any time/energy for it. I really miss my kitchen!

The only thing I’ve had time to do is drink tea. I know it somewhat seems lame, but sometimes that might be the only thing that gets me through the day.

I’ve started drinking caffeine again and I’m rather on the fence about whether or not I like drinking it. I really notice the effects of it, and some of them really aren’t all that great. Minor headaches, jitters, inability to sleep at night… Why is it we like drinking this stuff? I haven’t figured that part out yet.

After these past few weeks of really needing to have that extra kick in the pants, I started looking into caffeine and what types of tea have less. Tea seems a bit on the complex side…but maybe that’s why I like it.

Caffeine levels in tea vary in the way that they are processed and creating the “type” of tea. So here are the different levels of caffeine that I’ve found that each type of tea contains (roughly):

White Tea – 10mg
Green Tea – 20mg
Oolong Tea – 30mg
Black Tea – 40mg

I’ve never had Oolong, and my experience with white and green has been very minimal, but I do like black tea. I can’t stand it straight up but flavored I can handle. Green is not my favorite, too leafy. And white…I think I might have had it once? I can’t really remember.

So I took the plunge and decided to continue on in my effort of trying new things. I ordered a bunch of tea online!

I ordered from Adagio Tea, and they came very quickly (awesome). I ordered an Oolong sampler pack as well as some herbals and a white.

I really am slightly in love with the tins and the labels. I love the tiny tins, they make storing the tea very easy, especially since they stack very well. I also love that the basic instructions of the water temperature and how long to steep are right on the tin. Hopefully I won’t mess it up!

So here’s what I got:
Oolong (Almond, Peach, Vanilla, Grapefruit)
White (Peach)
Herbal (Berry Blast, Sour Apple)

I’m kind of iffy on the grapefruit Oolong, that just sounds a little odd, but it seems to have gotten pretty good reviews online so I’ll give it a shot.

The other great thing about sample sized tins? Only $2 each! That’s a pretty good deal on loose leaf tea. Adagio also have a frequent cups program so that you can earn points that turn into free money for tea. You also can earn the points by reviewing teas and sending gift cards to other people. I’m all about the free stuff.

I’m rather excited to try these new ones out soon and reporting back on what I got.

It’s been a long week.

Well, technically it’s a short week since Monday was a holiday (no work, yay!) but I feel really run down at the moment. (This seems to be quite a theme for me.)

I’m training a coworker to take over my old job since the other person I trained for my job has now been promoted to manager. Now training itself isn’t quite so bad, but it’s the hours that are killing me. I was very excited to get off of this schedule at first since it is so early (I have to be there, 40 mins away, by 5am).

I really didn’t miss being woken up by my alarm clock and looking over at the time to see it flashing 3am at me. I had to start drinking caffeine again this week to try and keep myself going on this schedule, while trying to do my job so I’m not leaving my dear coworker hanging and yet train someone on a job I haven’t technically been in for over 6 months.

The lack of traffic coming home is a nice consolation prize for how I’m feeling right now.

So I decided to self medicate… No not in that way, but with a hot cup of tea and a mellow song to try and take myself to another place all together. My favorite tea of all time is Tazo’s Passion. I love the taste and how it can just relax me every time I drink it.

I decided to start doing reviews of the teas I drink. Maybe I can convince someone else to find the enjoyment in drinking tea, or help someone else find a tea they might also like. I love tea so much, and I just want to share my loves with you guys.
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My new friend, Terri, decided to surprise me with an invite to head out with her and a friend to the Chinese Garden in Portland OR. I love surprise outings.

Because I’m a hermit and don’t do well with other people at times, I thought about not going. Then I also thought about my recent goals to meet more people and to try new things. So I went.

I have to say it was a glorious trip. Not only was the day beautiful, but the garden was really nice as well. It was quite a shocker to me that this little oasis existed in the middle of a bustling city, surrounded by tall office and apartment buildings. I took tons of pictures and got to know my new friends better over the beautiful landscape as well as a good few hours in the tea house.

I almost tried to convince them not to go in the tea house since I stopped drinking tea for the last few years due to caffeine inducing my killer migraines, but they wanted to go and I gave in.

I’m such a sucker for a pretty face.

I am really glad I went though. I thought I would be just sipping ice water until I found the selection of herbal teas. It’s almost like I forgot that herbal teas existed! How silly is that.

I went with hibiscus tea, Terri had tea flowers (as in the flowers that bloom on the tea plant) and her friend Kelly had black ginger peach tea. I didn’t try their teas but I was in heaven with the hibiscus. It was nice and strong, tangy and almost citrusy. Plus it was a beautiful red color. I love strong flavored teas.

We also ordered some snacks go to with them, some vegetable dumplings as well as a red bean cake.

Red bean cake? Really? To the uninformed, silly, sheltered American this sounded really odd and not too tasty.

I was proven wrong, yet again. If you’ve never had it, try it. It’s sweet, rich and almost has undertones of a fruity chocolate. It was baked in a really beautiful pastry crust and was really moist and delicious. It went beautifully with my dark red hibiscus tea.

The dumplings were pretty awesome also. I’m not really sure what was in them but they were pretty tasty.

We each got our own little teapots and little (and I mean LITTLE) cups for our teas, which I found just charming.

All in all it was a great day, meeting a new friend and growing closer to my other friend, plus the “reintroduction” to tea for me.

I highly suggest going there if you are in the area or plan to visit. It’s small but a wonderful experience. And don’t miss out on the tea house, it is quite lovely.

Sometimes through life to tend to give up things for a big reason (example, smoking will kill me) or for no reason at all. I gave up soda about 2 years ago. I really wanted to cut down on my caffeine intake as well as I knew that drinking all that Diet Coke with its artificial ingredients, carbonation, and fake sugar really wasn’t very good for me.

Plus for some strange reason it started giving me horrendous heart burn. I’m partly convinced that the heartburn thing is really my body’s way of saying “You want to stop? Ok, I make you stop!”

I have to say, that really sucked. But it was also good in a way since I started to associate soda with pain, therefore I really didn’t want it anymore. I still craved it, and the sound of opening a can of soda? Holy crap, I could smell soda across the room. I went from 2-4 cans of Diet Coke a day, to none.

I tempered the bad reaction of losing a main source of caffeine with drinking tea. I liked black tea, flavored or with some home made vanilla sugar and milk. And chai. I loved chai tea.

I say loved because after a while I just stopped drinking tea. No real reason why, it just happened. Then when I tried to start drinking it again it started to trigger migraines.

That made me very unhappy.

Recently my friends took me out for a day trip to the Chinese Garden in Portland, OR and we had a drink in the tea house. It was lovely. I forgot how much I love tea. Granted its herbal, but it’s just delicious!

So be prepared, there will be more talk of tea in our future.