Cold Refreshing Dreams

The Tomb of someone important.

This is National Afternoon Tea Week in England, so let's all raise a cup [or glass, if it's too hot] to our friends across the pond. In light of that, I have been perusing a book entitled "British English A to Zed". We are indeed, 2 countries separated by a common language. It is certainly less so than it was, but I am all for maintaining cultural and linguistic differences. It is what makes us unique and interesting. By the way, it does define afternoon tea as tea, that which one consumes about 4 o'clock, and High Tea as the equivalent of our supper.

Yesterday I made up a pitcher of Madam Potts's Indigo Dreams. I reviewed this a while ago as a hot tea and now I am having it as an ice tea. It is described by Madam P as a sensuous blend of "Jasmine Spiral Buds, Lavender, Jasmine Flowers and Violets." The hot tea tasted mostly of Jasmine, with lavender overtones. The ice tea is the reverse, Lavender with Jasmine highlights. The dry tea is quite pretty, with all the different variations of purple and the cold tea is as well, being a soft yellow. It is naturally a bit sweet and very clean tasting and refreshing. I do have a serious problem with it, however - it's all gone, oh woe.

I just got the summer catalogue from Upton's and in my mind I have spent hundreds of dollars. A lot of this year's teas have arrived and I want to try them all. To begin with, they say they have some Yunnans that are of the quality of a few years ago, so they are a definite, as that is my all time favorite. Then there are some said to be of good quality from Kenya and Nilgiri and, and, and. You see the dilemma.

I was reading another tea-bloggers article a while ago, about listing your ten favorite teas. I barely made it out of the blacks before I had more than 10, so I gave up. Each one I listed made me think of another one. It might be easier to list the ones I don't like. How about you? Can you limit yourself to just ten? If so, I admire your decisiveness.