MsBarrows' Maunderings

wibblywobblywitticism:

When in doubt, tea.
When happy, tea.
When cold, tea.
When sad, tea.
When sick, tea.
When no inspiration, tea.
When have to leave bed, tea.
When supposed to be doing homework, tea.
When scheming to take over world, tea.
When summoning minor demon, tea.
When accidentally starting apocalypse, tea.

(via yarnandteaisallineed)

cypheroftyr:

logastellian:

Doc Brown - “Proper Tea” 

Don’t fucking mess with our tea.

oh work wife…

Laughing so hard I’m crying.

brennacedria:

Ho. Ly. Shit.

400 followers? I totally don’t deserve it. But since you’re all here anyway, I thought I’d celebrate.

But unlike most follower giveaways, I’m not any good at making things. So no, I can’t art for you, or even write for you. Tumblr has gotten me addicted to Adagio Teas, but I don’t have enough experience yet to hold the giveaway for samples of my own tea blends. Then what can I do???

I’ll buy you tea, instead. You want a nice, safe Earl Grey? I’ll buy you some Earl Grey. You want some amazing fandom teas? I’ll buy you your fandom teas. Hell, I’ll even get you some of Adagio’s teaware if you want it. That’s the beauty of a gift certificate when the selection is this varied, you can get anything you want!

Winners and Prizes

Three winners total, selected from this post’s notes:

• One (1) Adagio.com gift certificate for $35
• Two (2) Adagio.com gift certificates for $15 each

Considering most 3oz pouches of tea are $10, this should cover an order AND shipping for any domestic US orders, at the very least.

Rules

1. Must be following me as of my original post to enter.
2. One like and one reblog per person, for two entries total per person. Notes will be tracked and saved to an Excel sheet just in case Tumblr eats them.
3. US and International followers welcome, but if you live overseas please confirm that Adagio ships to your location!
4. Entries must be in by 9pm ET on Thursday, April 11th.

Let’s see, I think that’s everything? If you have any questions, send me an ask. I’d prefer the ask be signed, that way I can reply privately if necessary, but I do have anon on if you don’t mind the answer public.

genginger:

yarnandteaisallineed:

lady-red-letter-day:

Truer words have never been spoken. 

Yes. To all of this.

True indeed.

Also this Everyone Deserves Tea mug seems appropriate here.

(via hot-elf)

queendread:

freakingmuse replied to your post: This morning I visited another office for a…

That is … an English thing, isn’t it? Or a tea drinker thing? As a non-English coffee drinker I have no idea what this is about but I imagine you screaming like a banshee because of tea and it amuses me. I’m sorry :|

To me it’s more of a ‘moral crusade’ sort of thing. Basically, to make the best cup of tea you need to pour boiLING (like, actually bubbling) water on your teabag (some people warm up the cup/pot by swirling some boiled water in there first), leave it to brew for a little while depending on how strong you like your tea (a few seconds is normally fine if you’re in a hurry, though), strain and remove the teabag, and THEN pop your milk or lemon (if you’re continental or hate milk or whatevs) in.

Some people leave the teabag in when they pour the milk, and give you a mug with a weird, milky, floating teabag that serves no purpose but to confuse. Those people trouble me, but they’re okay.

BUT SOME PEOPLE DEFY THE MEANING OF TEA ITSELF by pouring in the milk before the water. These are prelactarians and they are objectively wrong. For one thing, it’s just weird I mean why would you even do that WTF. For another thing, the molecules in the milk are much larger than those in water, and they clog up the holes on the teabag so the water can’t get in, meaning you always, always end up with a mug of something limp and weak and gross that is barely even tea to begin with and tastes like soggy paper, super-skimmed milk and licking the granules off the bottom of the tea tin.

I think I have particularly strong feelings about this not just because I’m an English tea-drinker, but also because I’m half French and have an American sister in law, and unless someone’s specifically taught them how, I find that the French and the Americans I know have no idea how to make proper tea. Sometimes they are prelactarians, sometimes they give you a cup with a teabag and a pot of warmish water on the side, sometimes they pour the milk in WITH the water and just get confused. So when people of either of these nationalities quip that they don’t understand this ‘English obsession with tea’, you can pretty much guarantee that it’s because they’ve never had an actual cuppa.

I’ll end this weird nationalist rant with a poem about tea:

If you are cold, tea will warm you.

If you are too heated, it will cool you.

If you are depressed, it will cheer you.

If you are excited, it will calm you.

I’ve found that while tea may not SOLVE many of life’s great crises, there aren’t a lot of things that a cup of tea won’t make just a little bit easier to deal with. Apart from if you’re on fire, in which case maybe stick to water.

This is the reason why I almost never order tea in coffee shops here in Canada; except for a handful of places that still maintain a separate bar area where you can milk-cream-sweeten your beverage to your own taste, a lot of them add the milk and sugar for you. They usually dispense it from measuring machines into your cup before adding the tea bag and topping it up with hot water, and then hand you the cup with the poor lukewarm milk-clogged teabag in it and just… no. No. I would rather order a cup of coffee than do that to even the cheapest supermarket orange pekoe.

I’d further note on the boiling water theme that it’s best with water that has only just come to the boil and hasn’t been boiling for more than a few seconds. Someone once told me that this is because the longer you boil it the less oxygenated the water is, and tea made with over-boiled water will be flat in flavour.

avrilxiv:

msbarrows replied to your post: why did i wait this long to try darjeeling tea, oh…

I loooove Darjeeling. One of my top 10 teas.

yeah, it just catapulted right up there for me. my tea repertoire is relatively small — having an english family, i was raised on tetley/orange pekoe as if it was water, and other than that i tend to stick to chai or rooibos. i’ve been happy in my little tea bubble but i grabbed a box of this darjeeling on a whim today and it’s amazing.

still drinking it with sugar and milk though. some habits die hard :p but i’ve read that that’s a bit of a no-no?

Yeah, raised on cheap supermarket orange pekoe over here too (though our brand of choice was Red Rose, back when it still came with a ceramic figurine in every box). Then in her teens my sister started buying different Twinnings tea varieties in a fairly decent deli store that opened in a local mall, and shared the occasional bag with me, and I got hooked on better teas. In fact she’s the source of my Lapsang Souchong addiction, though I loathed the first cup of it I ever tried. Smelled and tasted like roofing tar to me back then :)

Also, as someone who happily turns everything into sweet milky tea, as long as it’s not so acidic it curdles the milk (rose-hip tea, I’m looking at you…) I am hardy one to question what anyone else puts in theirs! My usual tea-making method involves not just a goodly amount of milk but also a tiny splash of half-and-half cream. OMG but tea is awesome with even a bit of cream added; the flavour suddenly gets a lot smoother, and it’s got a very nice rich mouth to it.

Made my annual tea shopping run today. I may have gone a bit overboard in how much tea I picked up. But only a bit! Some of this is stuff I could have picked up as easily up north, except it would have required finding out when my Dad was going all the way into town for shopping, and hope he was stopping (or willing to make an extra stop) at one of the places I needed. So bought it while running around today.

Five boxes of different chai there - yes, I love chai. I haven’t seen that “Four O’Clock” brand before so grabbed their chai sampler to try out. And I haven’t tried the Stash Chai before either.

I tried that Oolong tea last year after spotting it at only $0.79 a box - turned out to be quite nice, so this year I grabbed two. And probably should have grabbed three, at that price.

For the “Taylors of Harrogate” I had to go to Pusateri’s, a high-end gourmet grocery store near my sister’s house (the sort of place that has an olive oil tasting bar). I was thrilled when I saw they had Lapsang Souchong in stock this year (they didn’t last year, so I had a pretty much Lapsang-less year). Grabbed two boxes and only restrained myself from grabbing three since I knew I also wanted the Assam and Darjeeling teas. I probably should have got the Darjeeling in a different brand; that box is less than half as many bags and was not at less than half the cost, and they had at least two other brands of Darjeeling on hand.

Also admired the “not unless I win the lottery” teas, like the imported brand from France of assorted loose-leaf teas in small decorative tins that was over $20 per tin, with names like “Jasmine Jade Pearls”.

And grrr, lots of jasmine tisane, lots of jasmine green teas, but no jasmine black tea to be found anywhere, when that’s the only one I actually enjoy (I find the perfuminess of the jasmine flowers too overwhelming otherwise). That one seems to be a tea I often go years between finding.

These are not going to all fit into my giant tin’o’teas when I get back north.

honorized:

joosboks:

msanimanga:

itstrivial:

#CAN YOU PAINT WITH ALL THE COLORS OF THE TEEEEEEA

HAVE YOU EVER STIRRED THE CREAM IN WITH A LONE TEASPOON

OR ASKED THE STEAMING KETTLE WHY HE STEAMS

CAN YOU DRINK WITH ALL POSHNESS OF THE BRITISH

CAN YOU PAINT WITH ALL THE COLORS OF THE TEA

CAN YOU PAINT WITH ALL THE COLORS OF THE TEEEEEAAAAAAAAA

YOU THINK THE ONLY TEA CUPS WHO ARE TEA CUPS

ARE THE TEA CUPS WHO HOLD A DEEP DARK BREW

BUT IF YOU DRINK LIGHT ORANGE TEA OF STRANGERS

YOU’LL TASTE THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEVER KNEW

HOW DARK CAN THE ORANGE PEKOE GROW

IF YOU POUR IT NOW, YOU WILL NEVER KNOW

AND YOU’LL NEVER STIR THE CREAM IN WITH A LONE TEASPOON

FOR WHETHER WE LIKE BLACK, OR HERBAL GREEN

 WE MUST DRINK WITH ALL THE POSHNESS OF THE BRITISH

WE MUST PAINT WITH ALL THE COLOURS OF THE TEA

YOU CAN OWN THE LEAVES AND STILL

ALL YOU’LL OWN IS LEAVES UNTIL

YOU CAN PAINT WITH ALL THE COLOURS OF THE TEA 

I have just witness the most glorifying post in the history of tumblr.

(via bioticbootyshaker)

labocat:

Zodiac Tea Giveaway!

I finally finished my reviews of all twelve of Adagio’s Zodiac Blends, so now it’s time for a giveaway!

First Place will receive sample bags of all twelve (12) of the teas. The samples will be enough to make about 10 cups of tea, same as standard Adagio sample sizes.

Second Place will receive sample bags of six (6) of the teas, their choice.

Third Place will receive sample bags of four (4) of the teas, their choice.

RULES:

1. You do NOT need to be following me. I post a lot more than tea-related things, so there’s no need. It’d be nice, but not necessary.

2. Both reblogs and likes will count as an entry.

3. Do not edit any of the text on this post.

4. One reblog per day, per person.

5. Giveaway will end October 1st, 2012 11:59 PM PST.

6. You must have your ask box open; if I can’t contact you, I can’t let you know you’ve won D:

7. Open to everyone; I can ship wherever.

(via rhulaurious)