A Likely Pair

I had a very nice herbal today from The English Tea Shop.  It is a mix of Lemongrass and Ginger, which is its name.  I brewed it with boiling water for about 5 minutes.  Although there is no sweetener listed, the resulting brew was quite sweet.  The lemongrass and ginger were in a perfect balance, with neither one being too aggressive.  This would make a lovely summer ice tea for you herbal drinkers.  Even for me, when I don't want caffeine.  In fact, I have some in the fridge right now, as it is a warm, warm Spring day.

My, yes, Spring is taking off.  The skunk cabbage is unfurling its bright bright green leaves - a sure sign the season has arrived!  The willows are yellowing, a few are almost green.  Some of the trees are pushing out fat red buds, the understory is turning its twigs red as well.  Two of my hollyhocks are up and the first tiny frilly-pleated fans of the lupines are showing.  I think  all  my berries survived and my poor pathetic little tree that got broken, tornadoed and eaten off twice is showing some buds.  I've seen the first daffodils, but no crocus yet.  Up here on our hill, things are a bit slower than 200 feet below us near the river, but we're doing just fine.  And the sun is shining, what more can I ask for?

I guess the crows want more as they have been having a 2 day discussion of something important, judging by the racket they are making.  The grackles are back!  They are so beautiful, their feathers are an incredibly shiny iridescent blue black - more blue on their heads. The tiny little titmouse has been singing away by the feeder.  It's actually more of a whistle, but it's pretty.

I'm not sure St. Barbara has a lot to do with Spring, but I love the fact that a Swiss museum paints its walls orange

Gingering Up The Day

I love covered bridges!


I was looking through my tea stash today and came across a bag of Tea Forte's Ginger Lemongrass. Since I like both these herbs, I thought I might as well try it. These are very cute, stiff pyramid shaped bags with a little green covered wire stem and leaf to secure the bag to the cup, so you don't need to fish it out with your fingers. All I could think was, no wonder these are so expensive. It was also wrapped in thin cardboard. The ingredients were ginger, lemongrass, licorice root, lemon peel and spearmint, all organic.


I brewed it as for any herb tea – boiling water for about 5 minutes. It's a nice tisane, tasting and smelling like ginger. The bag allows the herbs contents to expand. It tastes like good quality ginger, with the very barest hint of lemon and a bit of bitterness from the peel. Pleasant, cute, expensive (about $1.00 a bag or more); I can buy good enough ginger tea locally for 1/20th the price, so I don't think I'll be buying any. I got this one in a tea swap.