Icy Day, Warm Ice Wine

It's really Tuesday.



I am feeling very spiffy today. My narcissi are in bloom! They are filling the house with their lovely heady scent. I always feel so darn smart when something I do for the first time works. Even if it is a no brainer like sticking some bulbs in dirt and watering them once in a while, or making a recipe that really works. I am doing an amaryllis this year, too, so I will really be hot stuff, don't you think?





I found the neatest idea on the chat group Afternoon Tea Across America. It is a tea Advent calendar. Go here - http://amzn.to/hcoRmG to see it and maybe adapt the idea for yourself. Wouldn't it be a really neat gift for next year for a tea-loving friend? Especially one who has everything. One you could make yourself. I certainly have enough kinds of tea to do it. Now if I can just remember to do it!!!!





Oh snow! Beautiful snow! We have snow! About 3-4 inches. People are driving stupidly and there are smash-ups. Snow driving really is differerent and there's always someone who either doesn't realize it or thinks they are somehow different. After the first snow fall I always find a safe place to throw my car into a skid, so I can remembe how to recover from one safely, as it is counter intuitive. Our new to us car is all wheel drive, so I better read up on it first. I love snow. I love the silence it first creates, the patterns on the porch screens, the scent, the taste, I don't even mind shoveling the first few times. That last pleasure does dim, however, when there is just too much and then I am in favor of just stomping out a path.





I think today would be a perfect day to try some Ice Wine Tea I received from Stepanie over at Steph's Cup of Tea.

Okay, I never did get to that tea, so I am trying again today. Sometimes life interferes with tea drinking, much to my annoyance. On the plus side, I got all the specialty items for holiday entertainment and a bunch of Christmas presents, so I don't need to go near the malls again until after Christmas. I don't mind shopping, but I hate the crowds and the noise and the traffic and the people who are so harassed and unpleasant. A lot of my presents this year are going to be specialty breads, cakes and cookies. If you're not a baker or you're overwhelmed at Christmas, what could be better? I'd like that as a present, myself.

Ice Wine Tea. Neat Concept. Ice Wine is made from grapes that have frozen on the vine, which concentrates the sugars, producing a sweet, but acidic dessert wine. It is a very chancey operation as the grapes have to be perfect, almost over ripe and ice wine is a rare treat.

This dry tea smells intensely of rich deep berries or grape mash, waiting to ferment. I brewed it as I usually do for a black tea - 3,5 minutes with boiling water. If anything, the aroma intensifies as it brews. The tea is a pretty pale amber. What a great taste - like ice wine, sweet and full and deep! It reminds me of some of the better Keemuns, mixed with one of the muscatel Darjeelings. Very very tasty. It also reminds of the autumns in college when I picked grapes for Great Western and Taylor Wine Companies, on the shores of Keuka Lake in the FingerLakes of New York. Thank you, Steph!