This is the heading over the oldest organ in Stephansdom, the Cathedral in
Vienna. The Cathedral is so large that it holds 7 thousand people for the
Christmas Eve mass!

I am getting to the end of my stash of Boston Tea Company Tea. Only a few more to go. One of them is a nice little package of Bentley's Oriental Treasure Green Tea and 6 clover honey "spoons". They look like spoons, but are more like honey lollipops. The tea was bagged and there were only six. I brewed them up at 180 degrees for 2.5 minutes. There wasn't a whole lot of smell and sadly, there wasn't a lot of taste. Using the honey spoon brought out a floral taste, but I'm not sure how much of that was the honey and not the tea.


A different sort of tea bag tea from Boston was their Earl Grey, which contained a blend of Chinese and Indian tea, along with the Bergamot that makes the Earl, the Earl. Right out of the packet, it smelled really nice - a delightful floral bergamot. I brewed it for about 3 minutes and was very pleased. I think it was an excellent balance of decent tea and flavoring.





I read a small book I bought a while ago and would like to recommend it. It is Tea Time Journeys by Gail Greco, part of the Little B&B Cookbook Series. It is a small book but it is filled with fairly easy to make treats from a number of Bed and Breakfast houses. From Rose Petal Scones to Sundried Tomato Pate the food looked like lovely stuff to try for your next tea party. A longer while ago a number of people I worked with went to B&B sites for recipes and I have to say that the food was really good, creative and quick. If people will only be with you for one meal, you definitely want to wow them. I found that number of these recipes in the book had a good wow factor. Happy cooking. By the way, if you are looking for the books or cook books, a good source is http://www.alibris.com/. Lots of them are pretty cheap, too.

Perfect Tea for a Perfect Day

Yet another view of the Ravenna Church. There are dozens of churches in Ravenna worth seeing. We only had time for this one
because we missed a train connection and we were on our way to meet a friend. Ravenna was once a busy seaport, which may be why the church is so fortress-like. It could also just be the age in
which it was built.

Today is a perfect summer day. Sun and clouds chase each other across the sky, the birds are singing, [although it really sounds more like a hawk nestling that needs to fly on his own and doesn't wantto]. There is a wonderful breeze and we have enough trees so that it sounds great. It is all so soothing that napping seems like the ideal occupation. But first, some tea.

The Boston Tea Company sent me a great packet of teas to review and this is one of theirs, Bentley's Earl Grey Green Tea. It is in bags and I asked for it as I had never had a green Earl Grey. The leaves are, of course, all chopped very small, but there is a very pleasant scent of bergamot, that ugly little orange that smells so sweet. I don't know what kind of tea it is as it doesn't say. I did NOT follow the directions, which said to use boiling water, which would have guaranteed a bad cup. Green teas just like water to be about 140 for Gyrokuro to about 180 for the sturdier greens. I used 180 for 2 minutes. It's been my experience that that seems to work for greens unless someone tells me different.

The liquor brewed up to a pleasant pale orange and maintained a soft scent of bergamot. Surprisingly, the tea did also, with a nice sweet undertone of the tea. There was also almost a sweet lavender in there as well. This a really nice tea, especially for tea bags. Just remember to brew it for less time, at a lower temperature. I am really happy to find this as there are times when going the pot route or even the loose tea quicky route is just too much, and a bag is just right.