The Voice Of Reason

2011 Tea Tasting
Haven't done one of these for awhile. I was looking for something hot but not caffienated so i looked through the samples i have left from the Christmas variety pack and came across Creme Brulee... It's a green rooibos tea and it smells wonderful! Taste? Yes please. it's quite nice. I think it would be very nice as iced tea too!

I must get some and the best news, not only has David's Tea opened up in Halifax on Spring Garden Road but there's one opened up in MicMac Mall near me! I was looking on their website and they have a couple of different travel mugs that have loose tea infusers built in, and one is actually a press-style. This could be detrimental to my bank balance! ;)

2011 tea tasting
North African Mint
Containing green tea, mint, with cardamom, ginger, licorice, fennel, and pepper. This was way better than i expecte it to be. Minty but not stongly so but a really nice, smooth flavour.

Cold remedy: A base of green tea with ginger and a couple other ingredients. It's supposed to ward off a cold if you drink lots of it when you feel one coming on. Unfortunately i only had a single serving sample so it's not really done the trick. It was ok.

Coco Chai Rooibos: A base of rooibos which is a red tea, caffeine free. I've not had it before and i suppose i should try it without all the spice and flavour added but this was nice. The cinnamonny chai flavour and that touch of coconut which gave it a sweet "soft" feel . Nice just before bed.

A bit of a frustrating week as far as work goes. Things keep breaking and i can't always figure out why. Happens that way sometimes. Had a meeting in an outside-the-office location on Monday morning and because it was so cold, i got a taxi. I did get the money back for that, though. Yesterday i had a doctor's appointment and could only get a mid day one so i took the afternoon off. It's in an awkward spot to get to by bus if coming from work in the middle of the day and after the wait to get in to see her and getting all the way back to work after, there wouldn't be much time left to the afternoon. Better to take a few vacation hours. Turned out just as well, since she wanted me to get an xray of my foot that's been giving me a bit of grief. I walked to the hospital from her office (just a 5 minute walk away) because  the walk in xray clinic was still open. Might as well get it over with. Had another bit of a wait there but not too bad. That's all done and dusted anyway.

It was cold and wet yesterday, though, so i had enough of being out in the light rain and chill. I was going to get a few groceries on the way home but i decided not to. I just wanted to get home where it was warm and dry!
( books and tea )

Everyone panicked and a lot of businesses, stores and offices closed early because of the storm. I left about 4 o'clock and it wasn't that bad downtown. Hardly anything on the ground, but slippery with slush though when i did finally get home, there was a bit more on the ground here. Since then there's been more come down and my power was out for almost 2 hours but it's no major blizzard here in the city by any means though it is now a typical winter storm.

It was however a pain getting home. Most of the busses passed us by as they were filled to the doors and windows. I saw my own bus heading down the road and thought yessssss but alas, before it go to the stop where i was waiting, the driver changed the sign to Next Bus Please! Damn! It was pretty full, too. One bus came by that was empty, it was going in a direction i wasn't. And three more came in a row all for the same route so a few of those weren't very full either. Again, though, no good to me. I took the first one that came along that had room that was going to Dartmouth and figured i'd wait for my bus to come across the bridge from there. MIght have a better chance of getting on if people got off at the terminal there first. As luck would have it, it wasn't long to wait and i did manage to get on it. No seats free until over half way home but that's ok. I really hadn't been standing a long time. I was talking to one lady who'd been making her way from the other side of the city and it'd been 3 hours. Her feet were wet and when she finally got on our bus she was shaking from the cold. Hot bath for you, missy.

In all, it took me about an hour to get home and that isn't really all that bad overall. Not a lot you can do about it in January.

It was so quiet while the lights were off (mind you, the next street over had theirs on, bastards!) and the sky outside looked more white-grey. Now that all the lights are back on, the sky almost looks pink with the reflections of the lights against the stormy night sky. I had lots of candles on and i fired up my eReader and got comfy. I'll have to reset my bedroom clock and i had to do that on the computer too.

2011 tea tasting
Having another one of my teas now that i can boil the kettle. It's a green tea with flavours of toasted-walnut pineapple, almond and coconut and it tastes almost like candy! Very nice and comforting! Rating 8.5/10

My friend gave me a box of 25 samples of different teas. All loose teas, of various types... black, green, herbal etc. Each had enough for one cup in a tea ball so i thought i'd jot down my impressions for each one i tried:

2011 Tea testing:
1. Dragon Pearls: It's a green tea, apparently a very old type blend. It's leaves rolled into little balls so that was different for a start. I found it fragrant and perfumy, not overwhelmingly so, though but a lovely scent and i see now through that link there's jasmine in it so that's why i was thinking it was like a sort of musky oriental perfume. Tasted nice, but i'm not sure it's something i'd enjoy all the time. Rating on a scale of 10, 6.5