Tea Party

After a recent visit from lawyerchefgirl and husband, we received the coolest post-stay-at-your-place gift: a selection of teas. This perfectly matched the visit since the weekend included a lot of homemade chai to ward off illnesses and help warm the SoCal bones during a colder Midwest weekend. The selection of teas included (from top, left to right):

• Sugar crystals
  Although not tea, a few of these crystals dropped into steeping tea adds a nice sweetness.
• Gunpowder
  This tea seems too potent to be a green leaf tea, but the label says it is green so I will go with that. The leaves come curled up in little pellets and the smell alone advertises the potency of the tea. Makes you want to smack your momma.
• Ceylon Sonata
  A nice mild black tea. I am loving this in my breakfast rotation right now.
• Jasmine bloom
  My favorite of the teas - it is a little ball of green tea hand-stitched around a jasmine bloom. As the tea steeps it opens to reveal the jasmine flower and scent.
• Dragonwell
  This green tea comes as flat, crisp wafers that I can only imagine would be lots of fun to sit and crush each one between my thumb and index finger. As you can seen, I am still off the green tea train, but I am working on it.
• Assam Harmony
  The best black tea I have tasted - it is good both warm and chilled.

Although not pictured, she also sent along loose leaf tea bags. For me, this is synonymous with rolling your own cigarettes - though arguably less badass - but I still feel cool putting my tea in the bags and steeping them in water just the same.