Monday, February 7, 2011

Rag Balls for Tea

Our first glimpse of Amalfi


My car began to smell funny while I was out today and when I looked under the hood, there was a small amount of smoke. My mechanic thinks it smelt like baked chicken and maybe a mouse had gotten inside. Yum, baked mouse.





I am waiting for my amaryllis to throw up a flower stalk and bloom. It has been 2 months and I am eager for some color. The hibiscus are about to bloom again, so that will have to do for now.





I have had so much good tea lately. The latest is from The PuriTea and is called Red Dragon Pearl Black. These pearls are amazing. They are red, with some tan leaves and are about the size of a chickpea. They resemble those balls of rag strips people used to braid rugs. They smell mostly of chocolate. The directions say to use 2-3 balls percup. I did and brewed it for about 3.5 minutes with boiling water.





As the tea brewed there was an aroma of dried leaves along with the chocolate. The liquor was about a medium brown. It was sweet and chocolately, a bit malty, a bit acidic. It really went well with a bit of cream. You could have it either way, as the cream did not seem to make much of a difference, other than to deepen the flavors a bit. It is very smooth. This may move right up into my top ten favorite black teas. It is amazing the flavor that tea can have all on its own, with out any additions. The website is www.thepuriTea.com . One of the nice things these folks do on their website is give suggestions about what foods their teas go best with.

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