The November Tropics

I thought I would never say this, but I have found a tea that is better with sugar.  It is Boston Tea Company's Tropical Mango.  It is another sample from this very generous company.  The tea has chunks of mango, which is almost my favorite dried fruit, and lots of safflower petals, making a pretty tea.  It smelled more like banana/mango to me than straight mango.  I brewed it for about 3.5 minutes with boiling water.

The heat seemed to bring out the mango aroma.  Definitely mango, no banana.  At first I wasn't real taken with it.  It just seemed like an ordinary black tea.  Then my husband started raving about it, so I thought I would try a little sugar.  Lo and behold, there's the mango.  Yum.  However, I did notice that as the tea cooled, Mr. Banana was back again and I had fruit salad tea.

This might make a really nice base for a smoothy, to play up the favors of mango and banana.  If you boiled it down and were careful about the sugar, it would make a nice dressing for a fruit salad.  I guess I am thinking more of summer.  It's so gray and grim, summer seems good. 

We are having some cold days, but it hasn't been below freezing yet.  I hope it's enough for the plants to pull all their juices back into their roots before it does freeze.

Downtown Amalfi, Italy from the cathedral steps.  I don't think there is a level place in the whole town.  My husband's family emigrated from here to Ischia about 1,000AD.