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?

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.