The topic of today is tea. All types and forms and all its possibilities...good graciouse they are endless! Lets take a step into our little time machine and go back to the wonder years of yesterday (I don't know why I said years, literally we are talking about yesterday). Yesterday happened to be Ash Wednesday, for all you catholics and such. If you do not know all the rules and regulations of ash wed. let me enlighten you a tad. 1) you go to mass and recieve ashes in the sign of a cross on you forhead (all in rememberence and such of that we are little specs on this large mass in space) 2) "You don't eat no meat?!?!?" yeah, on all the holy days and fridays of lent we skip out on the meaty bits and stick with fish (there's a whole back story about only the rich having meat and so the church found a way to control them a bit, or there is this other theory about meat being unclean so they tried to make people limit their intake...ext. ext.) 3) NO SNACKS! For those healthy indiviuals that arn't pregnant, diabetic, or elite athletes that need a ton of food, like Micheal Phelps, we have two small meals and one larger one, the catholic version of a day of fasting.
Now that we got through all that stuff on to TEA! Tea is a lovely things full of antioxidents and other fun health do-da's. Personally, it just tastes great! I found myself a little bit toooooo tea happy yesterday and I had two massive mugs of earl grey. It just so happened I planned these beverages right before going to practice for our student recital with the flute ensemble. Let's just say I was a wild lose cannon with fire crackers (if that makes any sense). I was bouncing off the walls, ofcourse everyone else found it humorus, but by the time a returned to my little aboud I was crashing..hard. That was when I realized...earl grey has caffien. Brilliant Kathleen!
Tea is a tasty thing but you must know how to wealed its powers properly. Wheather you will be supping a dark tea, fruity tea, breakfast blend, afternoon blend, sleepy time tea, children mild tea, green tea, white tea, super human multi-blended exotic fruit tea...or one of my favorites Herba Mate. After choosing your weapon depending upon time of day and energy level and stress level you must choose your brewing. I have heard it said certain teas need a certain amount of steaping time and a specific temperature of water. Take a gander at this...http://www.2basnob.com/brewing-tea.html. Now that we've covered this intrecate step only one question remains....how do you take you're tea?
I've had countless individuals look at me like I was insain when I went and poured some milk in a steaming cup of earl greay. It's like I suddenly turned into a 15ft tall penguin with glasses and a funny hat. I have been supriesed to disscover there are not many people that add milk or cream to their tea. So how do you take your tea? The next question is "One lump or Two?". In todays crazy upside down world we no longer have the simple choice of the quantitiy of sugar we wish to add to our tea. We now have splenda, equal, sweet and low, truvia, natural sugar, white sugar, and honey. TO MANY OPTIONS?!? Calm yourselves my little readers it will be ok, let me explain why.
(Wait whilest I grap my soup box).....
READERS LEND ME YOUR MUGS! Do you wish to have a true tea experience? Do you want to sup on a lovely concauction of leafy goodness? THEN REMOVE YOUR HAND FROM THAT YELLOW PACKET OF POWERDERD SUCROSE!!!! A real tea-er would sup their tea straight! LIKE A MAN!..or WOMAN!!! or small child who is lactoseintolerant...ANYWAY! This way one may feel the every turn and taste of the tea...personally I like SWEET THINGS! So then, what guidence do I have???? THINK NOT TWICE ABOUT SLAPPING A COLORED SWEATINING DEVICE FROM YOUR NEIGHBORS HAND! stevia, aspartame, sucralose, neotame, acesulfame potassium, and saccharin...clearly none of these are our humble sucrose. There have been studies done and as research goes the danger of these sweetners is still rather up in the air. One day aspartaine will cause cancer the next its perfectly safe. The last I heard was that a study was done that resulted in headaches from the use of aspartame, but that could have changed. These sweetners are catagorized as additives and therefore the FDA has to approve them so in theory they are safe. READERS! WHY USE THEM? Think about this my lovely readers...why take the short cut and use these face sugars when you could have sugar or unprocessed sugar even better still honey? If you are trying to be healthy by taking sugar out of your diet through fake sweetners I believe it's time to re-evaluate you entier diet. Instead of throwing some powder in your drinks why not cut out those processed foods...those twinkys maybe or that soda at lunch. Do you know how many packets of sugar it takes to equal that which is in a can of soda?
http://www.sugarstacks.com/
Yeah...puts a new perspective on "one lump or two?"....
(Let me put the soap box back in the corner)
Oh! Don't look so glum my little readers! Learning about sugar and such is sometimes a drag. You know what you need? YOU GUESSED IT! You are such smart readers, FANTASTIC! Brew yourself a mug of hot lovelyness! Don't forget to liberate yourself and put some honey or sugar in that tea! Or if you want to go all out..take it straight.
CHEERS!
Bean
My history spidey senses are suggesting to me that the reason Catholics don't eat meat during lent is because the fish industry was suffering and the Pope who instituted that rule (justifying it with the unclean blah blah blah stuff) had a brother who was a fisherman. I will be looking that up later for possible verification...
ReplyDeleteI know no other way in responding to my lovely comments. Anyway, dear Reader Magg-tastic I hope you do not frighten your young scholars with your arachnid arms and spidey thorax. Other then a historical bug image being stuck in my mind, your deductive reasoning are brilliant and I do wish to here more of this theory. I must stop by your web of knowledge later...HA!
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