Chinese Flowers with an Irish Twist

So efficient to have your garage one with your house. We're still in Durlach, Germany, from which my many greats grandfather emigrated in 1755. It is fascinating to me to see houses and churches and business buildings that he once saw.

Goodness, my husband may actually be backing into a finer discernment of tea. I was the designated beverage person this am and I decided to do a straightforward, no holds barred Irish Breakfast from Bewley's. This, as you may remember from my review of it on September 16, 2009, is what I just said, a get-you-going-in-the-morning tea. Frank wondered what it was, and said it “tasted peculiar.” I told him and he said “oh, it's just tea tea.” Which is our definition of something okay, but definitely not special. I don't think I'll tell him he's becoming a connoisseur.

Harney and Sons Tea. I haven't had any of theirs in quite a while. However, I ran across one of their “tagalong” tins, which is a small round tin to hold 5 or 6 sachets. It had their Chinese Flower Sachets in it which I bought a while ago, so I decided to try it. I am glad I did. This is another very pretty tea and Harney's sachets are nice and big to give the tea room to expand. The tea is a Chinese green, with blue, yellow and pink flowers and some citrus added. Citrus is the one fruit I like in my tea. The tea has a very nice floral scent and as it brewed, it gave off a hint of that citrussy smell. It brewed up to a pale amber. I couldn't really identify any one flavor, but it all worked together very, very well to produce a delicate floral cup sparked with lemon.

Special Teas Lemon Chiffon Surprise

To market, to market to buy a fat pig. So goes the old rhyme and so we
did, go to market, that is, but we bought no fat pigs. This is an outdoor market in Durlach, Germany. The man in the orange pants is the town street sweeper. Just think how clean we would be and how many more people would have work if we had street sweepers.

I got a very nice surprise today, a box of tea from Special Teas. A most welcome gift from a good friend for my soon-to-be birthday. Yumm. One lured me right into having some right away. I'm not a big herbal fan, except for peppermint and ginger but how can you resist Rooibos Lemon Chiffon (No. 781) Winner in 2008 World Tea Championship? I certainly couldn't and I love lemon.
Sure enough, it smelled just like lemon chiffon, very tasty. It tasted like it too and was even better when I added a bit of milk and a wee bit of sugar. Pie in your cup without calories - who could do better? My only quibble, and it is a small one, is that the chiffon part, if one can separate that out, seemed to have a bit of a "too much" taste in the back of my throat. Nevertheless, I think I will go have some more.

We have a chain of generally very large grocery stores in this area - Wegman's. I was there recently and much to my surprise they had loose leaf tea. All English or Irish - Bewley's, Yorkshire Gold, PG Tips, probably some others. I actually bought some and I have tried the Bewley's - the Irish one. My Granny Grunt would have loved it. Very strong, very forthright British tea. Perfect with milk [and sugar if you must - not me]! It didn't seem to be stale and was in a well-sealed inner bag, although that was not resealable. A good wake up tea for ordinary days, that is days when you feel ordinary, or it's too early to make a tea decision. I save my tea tasting for afternoon, as mornings do not contain a functional brain.