Filtered Happiness

I am once again an official "Happy Camper".  For some reason, PUR water filters will no longer stay on my water faucet.  So, I thought I would try Brita filter pitchers.  I thought they made my tea seem flat and somehow all tasting the same.  Then I discovered that PUR makes filter pitchers, also and now my teas again taste wonderful!  Happy tea, happy me.

Today I was waiting in the grocery line and spotted this tea party idea in a magazine:  when you are offering tea, offer a basket of edible flowers and herb stalks that people can choose to add to their teas, such as roses, nasturtiums, violas, pansies, thyme, mint, borage, and some of the others I've discussed before.  Probably best at a somewhat informal affair.  You could also add a few slices of ripe fruit or berries for folks to choose from..

Today I am having the first of my newly purchased Tea Trekker teas - Longevity Keemun, an organic black tea from Anhui Province, China.  In the packet it smells of fresh hay, but hay that has absorbed the aroma of wine barrels.  The leaves are a pretty mixed black, grey, brown and are somewhat long and twisted.  I used a heaping teaspoon per cup and water a bit under the boil, brewing it for 4 minutes.  It gave off a lovely aroma of dried corn/fresh wash, under girded with the wine barrel hay of the dry leaf.

This is a heavy, solid tea, going well with our fleeting coolness after a storm.  There is wine and dried corn, almost a heavily roasted taste.  Then it seems to soften and lighten, giving only fleeting hints of such things.  An intriguing tea!

This lovely church, Karl's Kirche, is in Vienna, one of the world's best cities.