Novel Teas

While I was visiting friends and family over the Christmas holiday, I received a packet of Novel Teas, a portable envelope of five tea bags with literary quotes on the tea tags. They were charming, and the Ceylon tea was good too!

I didn’t read ahead, so each quote was a surprise. Here’s the order in which I drank them.

1. Wear the old coat and buy the new book. William Phelps
2. She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain. Louisa May Alcott
3. When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes. Desiderius Erasmus
4. Never judge a book by its movie. J.W. Eagan
5. You can’t get a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me. C.S. Lewis

While it’s hard not to love Lewis’s quote (combining books and tea, natch), my favorite is probably Alcott’s. I suspect it is autobiographical to me.

Inventory: tea

I took an inventory of my tea drawer, and it turns out that I have fourteen different kinds of tea.  I drink them at different times for different reasons and fixed in different ways; here’s an explanation of my tea whims.  (Note: An asterisk indicates loose leaf tea, which means I use a tea infuser instead of a tea bag.)

Blended Black Teas

• PG Tips.  The strongest, most caffeinated type of tea, PG Tips is good every morning with milk and sugar.
• Awake (Tazo).  An acceptable, slightly less hearty and more flavorful alternative to PG Tips, Awake tea is what I often order at Starbucks instead of their Earl Grey.
• Barry’s Irish Gold.  First introduced to me in Ireland, Barry’s is a good breakfast tea or a mid-afternoon pick-me-up with sugar and a lot of milk.
• Earl Greyer (Republic of Tea).  This is a strictly afternoon or evening tea for me, since Earl Gray tastes lighter somehow than other blends.
• All Day Breakfast Tea (Republic of Tea).*  I discovered this tea in a plastic bag inside a differently labeled tin while poking through my drawer, so I guess I’ll give it a try.  It smelled heavy on the assam, which is nice for breakfast.
• Angelina Breakfast Tea.*  This is a French tea blend, brought to me as a souvenir from France but which I rarely drink because I don’t have the right brewing equipment (need fill-your-own tea bags).
• Irish Breakfast (Harney & Sons).*  As I’m almost out of Barry’s, I’ll soon make the switch to this breakfast tea, alternating mostly between Irish Breakfast and PG Tips.
• Russian Country (Harney & Sons).*  Another infrequently drunk tea, Russian country is bitter even with sweetener, so I would drink it in the morning or not at all.

Flavored Black Teas

• Rishi Masala Chai (Republic of Tea).*  Chai is for rare afternoon or evening occasions as a substitute to placate a sweet tooth; usually I prefer chai as a tea latte from Starbucks.
• Vanilla Bean (Republic of Tea).*  A favorite from Central Market, this vanilla bean tea is good in place of Earl Gray as a lighter, sweeter afternoon brew.
• Hot Cinnamon Sunset (Harney & Sons).*  The one tea I drink black, this cinnamon tea is naturally very sweet and has enough cinnamon to make your lips sting.

Herbal Teas

• Chamomile (Twinings).  When I’m sick.  With honey.
• Hot Apple Cider (Republic of Tea).  A seasonal tea, it really does taste like apple cider, but, as with all herbal teas, contains no calories.
• Pumpkin and Ginger (Republic of Tea).  This tea tastes like Autumn, or Holidays, and is good in the afternoon or evenings.

My husband once asked me, “When have you ever not had a stock of tea?”  Well, I’ve never not had a stock of tea, but I didn’t realize until recently just how extensive my options were.  For someone who loathes making decisions, I’m surprisingly good at choosing tea.

Fits and starts

I started a new post about three times in my head, but couldn’t seem to get anything down.  Possible topics included

• A discussion of Touchstone by Laurie R. King at the midway point
• Weighing in on the gay YA publishing web frenzy
• An ode to autumn because autumn is perfect tea weather
• NaNoWriMo in general

Instead I am posting to tell you that the above is probably all you will get since I am spending this weekend celebrating my birthday.  And sometimes working.  And reading a thick novel.  And drinking tea.

Speaking of which, I have a date with a certain Sherlock Holmes mug before I go to work this morning, so fare well.

February 7

Dear Weather,

Please get snowy and stormy again before 6:00 tomorrow evening, so I can decide that it isn’t safe to drive to my class so I can not go to school without feeling guilty.

And if it isn’t too much to ask, could you keep road conditions hazardous through Wednesday morning, enough to make the university close again?  I’m supposed to teach a writing class then, but I don’t want the cancellation to be my fault.

Gratefully Yours,

Someone who really loves to read novels bundled up on the couch with a cup of tea

January 27

I have been drinking a lot of tea and reading a lot of books.  Periodically I will drive to campus and teach writing to students whose names I keep forgetting.  This weekend I will commence writing the preface of my thesis, and then I’ll have a genuine complete thesis draft of about a hundred pages.  Things are coming together.

*crosses fingers*

I have always been a future-thinking person–for evidence, my personal journal usually talks about things I will do rather than the things I’ve done–and I’ve begun to think of Moving On.  I keep envisioning the many possibilities of what I might do after graduation in May, and the main one entails not living in this apartment anymore.

Last night I dreamed of painting walls blue, and they weren’t these walls.

Meanwhile, I bought six books in a month in which I intended to buy none, but I’ve read twenty books off of my official Unread Books list since December, so I feel a little bit justified.  I’m reading one of my Unread Books now, Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin.  Before that was Steve Martin’s Shopgirl.  My upcoming “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” post will be a bit schizophrenic, I think.

January 3

1. NaNoWriMo in January = JaNoWriMo.  It’s three days into my January novel, which means I’ve written Chapter One.  I was a bit unhappy this morning when I realized I would need at least one, but probably two additional chapters, and then I came to my senses and realized that a rapidly expanding novel is a good thing.  So it looks like I’ll be working on this one for a while.

2. First Book of the Year.  I’ve also read the first book of the year, Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier.  It’s a historical fantasy novel, meaning that the Transylvanian setting is quite relevant to the plot of the book, and it’s also a very good retelling of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”  While there is a frog who does what you might expect, most of the book is a fresh look at an old story.

3. Frames.  Attempt #1 (Target) has failed in my quest for a frame to fit the lovely poster that I got for Christmas.  It’s the shape of Great Britain but made up of authors’ names in the places where they were born.  Success: I get wall art and a reading list in one.  But of course it’s peculiarly sized, so the hunt is on.  If you have any 23 1/2″ X 32 3/4″ frames lying around, do let me know.

4. French Vanilla Tea.  I wish that all 96 of the multi-pack combination of teas that I got for Christmas were the black tea French Vanilla flavor.  It’s my new favorite, but I’ll have to ration them, because I only have seven left.  But who am I fooling?  They’ll be gone by the end of the week.

5.  Correction.  It’s actually “Whom am I fooling?”  Just so you know that I know.

April 21

1.  Grading Again.  Here I sit with a stack of sophomore essays.  Some are very good, but most are mediocre.  There goes my morning…and my afternoon….and tomorrow morning…

2.  Good News.  On the other hand, I am all but done with one of my classes this semester.  We have finished turning in all ten of our four-page response papers (on every one of which I received an A), and the only thing left is a brief presentation on a writing craft book.  And the professor does mean brief.  She cut people off who exceeded twenty minutes and told those of us remaining to keep ours to fifteen.  Which is fine by me.

3.  Tea.  I need another cup of tea.  It will be a busy day.  Grading this morning, go to work on campus, go to the library on campus, come home and more grading, dinner, and class this evening until 9:30.  Mm, tea.

4.  Oh, Before I Forget.  Don’t read Changing Places by David Lodge.  Over a period of four years, several reading lists and three separate people whose opinions I formerly valued highly told me that it was hilarious, but it wasn’t–though it might have been if this were still 1975, when it was published.  I abandoned it before I even reached halfway.