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.

Darjeeling Day

 My favorite German church windows - all 90 feet of them.

At last, the weather is beginning to slide into November.  It is getting colder rapidl y, the sky is gray upon gray and it is raining.  Perfect weather for tea.  But then, any weather is perfect for tea, isn't it? 

The Boston Tea Company gifted me with some Darjeeling Tea Bags, so that is on for today.  I do the usual for brewing - 1  tea bag, 212 degrees, 3.5 minutes. It has an intriguing smell, fruity, woodsy and nutty all at once, mostly hazelnuts, I think.  It is a medium amber brew and tastes remarkably of nuts and what I imagine old oak would taste like.  A very interesting flavor in tea.

I have to say I am really surprised and pleased to get such good rich flavor from teabags.  But this is.  Okay, I guess I have to admit I have turned into a tea snob.  But I try to only be one at home.

I am feeling some sort of cross between gratitude and sentiment this season and find myself remembering Thanksgivings and Christmases past.  I thought that this month, I would share some of mine and encourage you to share some of yours.

The first one that pops up is the first Christmas we were married and flew from Michigan to Rhode Island and then to Schenectady to be with our parents.  Christmas Eve is special in Italian households for the 7 fish dinner that obeserves the fast from meat but also ensures good luck in the coming year.  I hate fish in any way, shape or form.  I can't stand the smell, the feel of it in my mouth nor the taste.  But, hey, these are my very new in-laws and I will be a good daughter-in-law and eat up.  That lasted until, much to my horror, my mother-in-law plopped an enormous hunk of conger eel on my plate.  I tried to eat a bit - euuuw, fish grease - they're very fatty.  I tried to hide it - not enough mashed potatoes in the world would hide that thing.  I even tried to drop it on the floor for the dog, who wouldn't touch it and then I got another piece.  Finally, my laughter-stricken husband told them I didn't like fish and all was forgiven.  Since then, there had always been something non-fishy to eat, as my mother-in-law was one of the most loving people in the world..  So much for the good dughter-in-law gig.

Oh my, fights at the feeder station!  The greedy little sparrows are giving the purple finches the bums rush.  They are feisty, argumentative little buggers.

Hot Tea and Cold November

I am again in Amalfi - I am hoping it will warm me up.  LOL

The weather is hustling right along into November normality with cold rain.  Some brave bird is still singing and the geese are flying from night quarters to feeding grounds.  What a huge flock - there must be 100 or more, in waves of chevrons, taking a full minute to cross overhead.  Did you know they take turns being point man?  It is the hardest place, as the others benefit from the point goose's breaking of the air resistence.  The point man goes to the last place when he's tired - the easiest - while the next one steps up and they keep rotating as they fly.  I don't know who steps up to lead when they take off, perhaps the oldest.

Our buck now has 3 points on each side and at the moment seems to have lost his herd, as he is wandering up and down the road alone.  All the deer have transitioned into their gray brown winter coats and it can be hard to see them against the trees.  Not so hard when they are eyeing the bird feeders, however.

Boston Tea Company sent me some samples and with an eye toward Thanksgiving, I am trying one today.  It is Organic Cranberry Lemon, in a "whole leaf sachet".  Sure enough, there are nice big leaves, and bits of cranberry and lemon peel.  The sachet itself is quite large.  There's not much scent, but wait, as it brews, it gives off a milk and lemon sugar cookie aroma.  The medium amber brew tastes sweet, fruity and of lemon peel.  I found it hard to distinguish any cranberry flavor.  In fact, it leaned more toward bubblegum than anything else.  My friends in the fruity tea league will enjoy it.

May The Great Pumpkin Rise In Your Pumpkin Patch

Looking across the valley

Some of you may have heard about blue tea and wondered what it is.  While I was reading my tea books I discovered that back in the early days of tea shipping to foreign merchants, some Chinese discovered that if they added a blue dye, perhaps made from mallow flowers, to their tea, they could claim it was something very special and so, charge more.  Once this was discovered, the market disappeared.  Sometimes Oolong was referred to as "blue-green tea" because in processing, it is between green and black.  I've tried looking it up on line, with no great or satisfactory results, although there is a discussion on Tea Chat about the translation of Chinese words relating to this.  If any of you know more about this, please let me know.  Currently, this is not something generally used to describe a class of tea.

For those of you who are close enough, the Ottawa Tea Festival is coming up this Saturday, November 5.  The entrance fee covers all the free tea you can drink, plus a number of speakers and exhibits from around the world.  Workshops are extra and cover things like pairing tea and chocolate, tea and food and tea blending.  Sorry to give you such short notice, but I only heard about it today.

Since it is Great Pumpkin Day, aka Halloween, I decided to try some Pumpkin Spice tea from the Boston Tea Company.  They very kindly sent me this and two other blends.  This one is "Ceylon tea flavored with pumpkin, exotic spices and sunflowers".  It smells like pumpkin, with the usual array of spices one puts in a pie and its looks are enhanced by what I would guess are sunflower petals.  There is a slight chemical hint to the scent.  I am doing it with boiling water for 3.5 minutes.  As it brews the hint of chemistry dissipates and the dark liquor is very pleasant smelling, indeed.  Sweet is the first thing that comes to mind as I sip the tea, the pumpkin and spices come in at the end.  However, they linger so that as I continue to sip, they make a whole, well-rounded impression of a perfectly spiced pumpkin.  I added half & half and that did it no service at all.  I added some sugar and that again rounded out the taste.  For myself, I will drink it plain.

Sweet Jasmine

This is a milk station in Darstetten, where the farmers would bring their milk to be collected for
transport to the dairy.

Yesterday was a beautiful Fall day. Today we have the flip side -
cold, dreary, gray. A perfect day for tea. But then, any day is, although some just seem to cry out for warm drinks.

Boston Tea Company has been very generous in sending me samples to review. Today's is Jasmine and I am really looking forward to it. The leaves are a very pretty green, filled with Jasmine blossoms. They are like silk as I run them through my fingers and smell sweetly of Jasmine. Just the right touch, too, not overwhelming or cloying.

Jasmine tea is almost always a green tea, this one is a Chun Mee. After the leaves are dried, they are layered with fresh Jasmine blossoms anywhere from 3-7 days. Usually the flowers are removed each day and a new batch added. Generally the flowers are not included in the final presentation, but these were.

I brewed the tea at about 180 degrees for about 1.5 minutes, happily sniffing the lovely aroma. The liquor is a beautiful pale green. The tea is very pleasant, well-balanced, sweet. You can taste both the green tea and the flowery Jasmine. While it is not the very best I have ever had, it is very good in its own right. I thought perhaps the leaves and flowers could be ground and added to a good vanilla ice cream. I was also thinking about cooking a delicate sweet with it, but I don't think it would stand up to the high temperatures of baking. However, it might make a very nice jasmine custard to pour over pound cake or poached peaches.

Ok, Ok, It's Fall

The Royal Hapsburg emblem - the double-headed eagle.

Okay, even I will admit it is Fall - the sun is low, and there is almost-frost on the grass in the morning. I love Fall, but I guess I am running ahead of myself as usual and anticipating the gray days, which I really hate. I should work at just living in and appreciating the moment - especially when so much of it is beautiful.

Towards that end, I am trying Boston Tea Company's Autumn Harvest. These kind folks have given me sooo many samples. This is really what is considered a tisane or herbal infusion, as the base is rooibos -"red bush" in Afrikaans, one of the many languages of South Africa, the country of origin. The closest pronunciation would be "roy-boo-s". Rooibos has been used for hundreds of years by native peoples but has only been really noticed in this country in the last 10 years. It makes a very good base for flavors, as it doesn't seem to compete with them. In this case, the flavor comes from lemongrass, dried apples cinnamon and rose hips, all of which not only taste good, but are good for you.


I used about double what was called for - 3 teaspoons per cup, as I know I like things on the strong side, and I brewed it at the upper limit - 8 minutes, using almost boiling water. This orange tea (yup, a Fall color, even) smelled wonderfully of cinnamon, with a slight zing, probably from the rose hips. As it brewed it smelled more like sweet baked cinnamon with apples. And that is just what it tasted like! Very soothing and definitely in the "comfort food" range. It created a warming and cosy atmosphere, something good to have when you are "tea-ed out" but want a warm drink, as there is no caffeine in it. I did not like it with cream and I don't think it would need sweetener, unless you really like sweet things, as the apple and cinnamon seem to do a good enough job in that department.

The Elusive Earl

More ancient frescoes. I believe this and the one from last week are both
from St. Peter's Church in Bacharach, Germany.

Our weather is keeping us alert. Today started out warm and sunny, then got very cold, poured down rain and then threw in some humongous hail to make sure we were on our toes. Now it is sunny and warm again. The cats informed us that this was certainly not acceptable. The geraniums in front are looking very sad from the beating they received.

Those kind folks at Boston Tea Company sent me more free samples to try! The first one up is Earl Grey Citrus. Earl Grey is one of my all time favorites. and I was eager to try this. It is a mix of Assam tea from India, bergamot, blue flower petals and orange peel bits, making it on the pretty side. The leaves are dark and small, which means they are probably chopped, as Assam plants have very large leaves.

The scent in the packet was wonderful, very strong, sharp bergamot with an almost equally hefty citrus aroma. Wow, I thought, what am I getting myself in for, here? I brewed it up with a heaping teaspoon per cup, for 31/2 minutes with boiling water. As it brewed, all the bergamot and citrus went away! Oh no! However, the Assam smelt wonderful, clean and clear and fresh.
When I finally sipped some, there was no bergamot taste, but a very nice citrus one, very muted. The tea base was excellent, however. Phoo, I was hoping for more.

I have begun to wonder if the bergamot that tea makers have available to them is of lesser quality than it used to be. If you've been reading this for a while, you know I've been trying a lot of them and my most constant complaint is the lack of flavor. Great smell, but not much in the cup. If it were only one or two, well, everyone has an off day, but instead it is only a few who have the flavor.

This weekend a group of friends is getting together to celebrate birthdays and share life stories. The birthday folk get 10 minutes and 10 pictures to convey their life. Yikes, I've lived too long, how can I squeeze it all in?

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.

Tea on a Summer Day

I guess you can tell I was quite taken with the stonework of this
church. As I was sitting in our new church this morning, looking at
the magnificent organ, I thought that people coming here from other countries would probably be just as impressed. We are as exotic to visitors as they are when we visit a foreign country.


It's another beautiful summer day, not too hot, not too humid, but I am aware that my neighbors' corn and hay fields are drying up and lawns aren't looking too green. Where there was enough clover seed in our new lawn, the grass is doing well, clover is a good nurse. It also smells wonderful. The sweetpepper bushes - Clethera - also are pouring out their sweet perfume.

Today's tea offering is another one from the Boston Tea Company - English Breakfast, "a blend of superior Indian and Chinese Black teas." It certainly started out weell. As soon as I opened the packet, I was greeted with a wonderful fresh smell akin to very good pipe tobacco, with some wine like scent, touched with a tiny bit of smoke and an even smaller whiff of black cherry.

The dry leaf was small, composed mostly of black ones with dark and light brown ones to accent it. The directions said to use boiling water for 4-6 minutes. Gulp, I am always afraid to push it too far, as I don't want it to be bitter, but I plunged ahead and did it for almost 5. I was rewarded with a really nice cup of tea. Pleasantly strong with a deep complex winey, malty flavor, with just that wee bit of smoke, probably from Keemun tea, which is usually the Chinese component. Probably an Assam added the malt. It is a substantial tea, but not at all heavy. As it is "English", it stood up very nicely to milk and sugar. My husband even noticed it was very good. It was perhaps, even better plain, as more nuances could be noticed.

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.

Breakfast Tea in the Afternoon

The Bishop's throne in Ravenna. I hope he had a cushion! All those designs you see, everything except the glass, is inlaid marble, 1,000 years old and still in good shape.

Today cannot make up its mind to be cloudy or sunny or both at once. A nice day, however, with big puffy clouds and not too hot or humid, so I can dare to have hot tea.

Thanks to the good folks at the Boston Tea Company (from New Jersey!) I have lots more samples to try. Today's is their English Breakfast, a mix of Indian and China teas. The dry leaves are long and skinny and mostly quite black, although there is some brown in there. Altogether they almost look midnight blue. The aroma is winey and dark smelling - a sure sign of some Keemun in there. As it was brewing, it smelled so fresh, with the addition of a corn silk scent.

The tea brews up after 3.5 minutes, with boiling water, into a fairly light amber, almost a pumpkin color. The tea tastes as good as it smells. There is the deep winey taste of the Keemun and the lighter notes of either a late Darjeeling or a Nilgiri. To me, it seems somewhat light for an English Breakfast, but that's ok. The directions say to brew it 4-5 minutes, but I chickened out. It is a tasty tea and would suit for either breakfast or afternoon. i had it both with cream and without and I don't think it makes much difference.

Check out these two items currently on the Sereni(tea) and Puri(tea) blog from June 25, 2010 http://theteaemporium.wordpress.com/ They have just got to be seen, so hop on over there. I think the hangers are cute, but I am also not enamored of the cigarettea.

I don't know if any of you are rhubarb fans, but I am. Sometimes when I am making a sauce on top of the stove, it sticks and burns way too soon and I have to pitch it. I have discovered that it cooks beautifully in the micro! With minimum amounts of water, too. On a similar note, if you like to make applebutter or thick applesauce, do it in the oven just before you clean it. Almost no stirring and you can basically just forget about it for long periods.

Oh, woe is I!!! I have no more PG Tips tea bags. Whatever shall I do on brain dead mornings?

A Summer Paradise

More old stone work. All of my pictures are from a trip we took to see
the places our grandparents and more remote ancestors had come from.
We went to Switzerland, Germany and Italy and then spent a week in Vienna with a friend of ours.

Boston Tea Company graced me with a number of samples, as you know and yesterday's was no winner. Today's is one I reviewed as a hot tea. It is called Pineapple Paradise and this time I made it as an ice tea by the cold brew method. I used about 5 teaspoons to about a quart of water and let it sit in the fridge for about 5 hours. It is so good. Pineapple and berry and a hint of lemon. It really hits the spot on another hot day.

The base tea is a Japanese green Sencha and it is a very pretty mix, with bits of pineapple and attractive blue and pink flowers. Next time I may make it in a big glass pitcher and leave the leaves and fruit in until I pour each glass, as it maintains its good looks. It is a very nice pale green. I may also try adding a bit of fresh pineapple if I can find a nice ripe one. Doing ice tea in the fridge is a real cinch and the tea is clearer, plus it is easier to control how strong you might want it. My whole perspective on ice tea is undergoing a radical shift from just Lipton's Cold Brew, because "it's just ice tea", to discovering a whole 'nother world of really good stuff. Of course there have been some that were awful, like iced Lapsang Souchong, but I wouldn't have known if I didn't try, right?

Cherries and Strawberries

Moving on to Ravenna, Italy. I really loved all the
old stone work.

It is almost too hot to be borne again today. It's very dry and we have no shade. In the house it is almost ok, but who wants to be inside forever. I know I am not alone in this, my cousin said it is 102 degrees just north of Washington, DC. If it weren't for flowers and veggies, I would really rather just skip summer, at least the heat part.

In spite of that, I am tasting tea today. It is another sample given to me by the Boston Tea Company, Strawberry Fields. It seems like an appropriately summer drink. This tea is made from Premium Ceylon tea, “with the succulent taste of sweet strawberries.” The leaves are pretty small and very dark, with pieces of dried strawberries. The dry scent has a berry smell, but to me it is the scent of my dad's cherry tobacco. As it brews, however, that disappears and the scent of strawberries comes out somewhat. For once, I brewed it the recommended 4 minutes. Although the leaves are chopped, they are in quite large pieces, which gives me hope for the taste, even though I worry about how long I brewed it. I used boiling water and the standard 1 teaspoon per 6 ounces of water.


Well, I wish I could be more positive, but I can't. It really doesn't taste like sweet strawberries. The taste is very muddled and really reminds me far more of sweet tobacco. I am going to do another cup at 3 minutes and see if it helps. This time I also used less tea, about 1 ½ teaspoons for about 16 ounces of water for about 3 minutes. There are a couple of differences – it smelled better, but still not strawberry; it tasted better, but not enough to make me want to buy it.

Having said that I will shock you all and say I think this would've been better with some sort of natural strawberry flavoring, in spite of the fact I usually turn my nose up at them. I think the real problem with this tea is the dried strawberries, which simply haven't the same taste as fresh ones. And I confess that I have never had a dried strawberry that I liked. Those of you who do like them may like this tea, also.

On a somewhat different track, I had some Lindt Excellence Dark Chocolate, with a touch of sea salt, as a treat today. It really is done very well and the small amount of sea salt really off sets the chocolate. Yum. As I had some of the tea left, I tried them together – very nice! Tasted like really good chocolate covered cherries. Oops, maybe I shouldn't have said that. I first learned about having sweet and salt together when we lived in York County, PA. You always got pretzels with your ice cream and I found the two really brought out each others taste. Try it and see.

Oh Be Joyful!

A sign post in the town center of Darstetten, Switzerland, indicating it is a 30 minute walk to the hamlet of Nidfluh, where my great-grandfather lived. 30 Swiss minutes, maybe, we got a ride! The Swiss are great hikers and my great-grandfather' s house is part of an Historic House Walk. There was even a stamp with it's picture on it.

Hoo Whee, I'm rich today! Boston Tea Company asked if any of us who belong to the Association of Tea Bloggers would like to review their teas. Of course, says I, and today I received a total of ten, with some honey flavoring spoons. Nice big samples, too, so we can both try them.

Today's choice is Coconut Joy, Ceylon Black Tea with coconut pieces and coconut flavor. The leaves are small and dark, with the expected bits of coconut. What was not expected was the scent – just like fresh coconut or the best coconut milk. Not sweet or chemical tasting! I brewed 1 teaspoon per cup for 3.5 minutes. The directions said 4-6 minutes, but I can never bring myself to do that, especially with small leaves, which infuse faster.

The tea liquor is quite dark and smells very freshly of the tea with a pleasant overlay of the coconut. It is a sweet scent, but not sugary. The tea itself is really good. Exactly how I like my flavored teas – tea first, flavoring as second chair. On the tongue, it again has an elusive sweetness, without sugariness, hooray, and the coconut does tend to linger a bit, making me glad I tried this. With half and half, the coconut tends to come out more and it's delicious. I tried some lime juice with it and that was not a great success, as the lime was overwhelming. I didn't think a bit of sugar did anything for it either.

This is very good tea and will probably make it onto my favorites list. Which, incidentally, is huge. There is the inviolate all time favorites black tea, plain, list. Then there are black flavored, which I thought was quite small, until I started to think about all the ones I like. Never mind, I am embarrassed to say how many teas are my favorites. I do have one that is the king, however, Yunnan Gold. I just plain love the stuff. The recent crops are not as good as they were a few years ago, but I hope for the future! I haven't had any of this year's, so I am eagerly awaiting it.

Paradise in a Snowstorm

That tall lovely pillar is a single piece of malachite, one of my all-time favorite rocks. I love the way the shades of green swirl around each other. It is over 57% copper. This is one of the many sidewalk exhibits in Vienna.

I took part in a tea swap recently and received so many wonderful teas! Today I decided to try Boston Tea Company's Pineapple Paradise. It definitely smells of pineapple and there are pineapple pieces, orange peel and blue and pink flowers strewn through the green tea. Very attractive! I brewed it about 170 for about 2.5 minutes. The water immediately turned a pretty lime green. The brew tasted and smelled like ripe pineapple, with a bit of berry and floral. The water became murky looking after a bit, which was a surprise, after the fresh green color and as it cooled, it got pink. Is this some sort of mutant tea? I certainly don't know, but it did not affect the taste. The pineapple flavor faded some as it cooled and left just the berry taste, which was, for me, actually pleasant. I think berry tea people might like this one on ice, as the last bit I had was very cold, indeed.

I often mention how dry teas look, if they are attractive or colorful or pretty. I do the same with the brewing tea. The reason for this is something I learned as a caterer – people eat with their eyes first. If a plate of food or a beverage looks odd or ugly, we are much less inclined to want to try it. I actually began to learn this as a child when I made trays of colored ice cubes. The red and green ones were okay, but no one wanted the blue ones. The same is true of how things smell. If something doesn't smell right to us, we don't want it. Smell is also a huge component of taste. People who have no sense of smell can barely taste anything – it all is the same to them. If our teas look too peculiar or if they have a scent we don't like, it can be hard to try them. Thankfully, most of the teas on the market have both scent and eye appeal.

I mentioned earlier this week that January is Hot Tea Month. If you would like a list of 31 ways to celebrate, go to http://www.about.com/ and then type in “hot tea month”in their search box and about halfway down the next page you'll find it.

9th straight day of snow.