It's the first day of autumn, whatever the weather in Illinois may indicate. If you doubt it, leave your windows wide open all night and walk around barefoot on tile in the morning. It's not unbearable, but it's chilly.
Which leads to this frilly post. The combination of cooler weather and a presidential campaign destined to offer up many more headaches before November means that there's never been a better time to incorporate a hot cup of tea or two into your day. With a wide variety of health benefits and calming properties, a price of mere pennies, abundant flavor, and no caloric impact, tea is a little fall miracle, and a good topic to divert us from politics for a few minutes as well.
Unfortunately, many of us were brought up with Lipton teabags, bought in boxes of 100. Not that there's anything wrong with that tea, but it's not something you'd crave constantly. For only a little more money, here are some teas you can still prepare simply by floating a teabag in hot water (covered, preferably). No tea ball or loose ingredients necessary, and no lemons, sugar, or milk required, either. And they're all widely available in stores. I'll start with morning tea--best for breakfast, with a dose of caffeine about a third that of coffee to offer a smoother start to the day--and wrap up with herbal teas better suited to afternoon or evening consumption.
Plantation Mint: A Bigelow tea, this has a nice spearmint flavor. A good palate cleanser if you start your morning with an intensely-flavored breakfast.
Lemon Lift: Also Bigelow, this tea actually appears to effervesce when boiling water hits the teabag. Very refreshing.
Constant Comment: Made with black tea and orange rind, this Bigelow offering is their most popular offering for a reason.
Good Earth Original: A bit more expensive, this tea calls itself "sweet and spicy," which is exactly right. It's probably too much for daily consumption, but it has a wonderful aroma and will impress your guests if you serve it in lieu of coffee. Includes a few odd ingredients, including papaya, rose hips, and anise, that provide some of its unique flavor. Also available in caffeine free, herbal form.
English Breakfast: A Celestial Seasonings offering, this is just black tea. I'm sure if you sampled a variety of types of tea, you'd learn to distinguish one from another, but this is just a simple tea with a more interesting flavor than Lipton.
Earl Grey: You can get this black tea and oil of bergamot mix from anyone, but Stash makes a particularly good variety, with a very smooth flavor. Better yet, Stash is often buy-one-get-one in stores.
Lemon Ginger: Here's the first herbal tea, and the first Stash tea to get free with your Earl Grey. A wonderful blend of lemon and ginger, this is a perfect afternoon tea, especially if your lunch isn't settling properly. The potentially harsh ginger flavor is nicely mitigated by the lemon, leaving you refreshed and your stomach soothed.
Peppermint: You can get this from Stash or Celestial Seasonings; Stash's individual foil pouches are more wasteful, but also keep the contents fresher. Either way, this is a great afternoon tea, clearing out bad tastes and leaving a lingering minty feel. Also a good evening tea, especially during the holidays. Also good is...
Mint Medley: Which blends peppermint and spearmint, slaps a Bigelow label on it, and offers a surprisingly enjoyable taste despite mixing mints.
Tension Tamer: Definitely an evening tea, this is a blend of many herbs and spices. Check out the ingredients: Eleuthero ginseng root, peppermint leaves, cinnamon, ginger root, chamomile flowers, lemon grass, licorice root, catnip leaves, tilia flowers, natural lemon flavor, hops, Vitamins B6, and B12. All of that combines to form an indescribable taste that I'm willing to bet you'll enjoy.
Obviously this represents the tip of the iceberg, but I hope it promotes my main goal: to get you to think about drinking more tea. You've got pennies to lose and a healthy new daily treat to gain.
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2 comments:
I wasn't trying to drive people away, necessarily. I wanted to write about something different, and to see if I could write about something completely different in a very different way. We can all use something completely different now and again, no?
Anyhow, I just finished a cup of Earl Grey while I was typing this, and it was splendid, leaving a wonderful hint of citrus in my mouth. I'm not eating between meals at all this week--again, something different--so the tea has been a good distraction. I've started using FitDay.com to keep track of what I eat and what I do; the knowledge that I'll have to enter everything keeps me from nibbling and encourages me to ride my new exercise bike more than I otherwise might. I bought some new clothes last week; the pants were the size I fit into now, albeit uncomfortably some days, and that is the size I intend to continue to fit into, with a greater degree of comfort, for the foreseeable future.
Have I driven you away yet? I could tell you how, according to the FitDay calculator, I'm consuming about 750 fewer calories a day than I'm burning, which would put me on track to lose a pound a week even if I allow myself to let things equal out on the hard-to-control weekends rather than trying to actually consume less than I burn. At that rate, I could wear some of my old Minnesota sweaters, which are pretty form-fitting, by New Year's. Not that I'd want to--who am I trying to impress?--but I could.
Still here? I've taken to watching random TV while I bike. I saw about 65% of the Gilmore Girls premiere, enough to understand why people like it and fear that I could also become obsessed if I allowed myself. Perhaps I'll watch it on DVD someday? I also saw the Seinfeld where Jerry dates a dermatologist and realized she's going to be in that new ABC show, "Desperate Housewives." I think she also played a crazy woman on "Melrose Place."
Hungry for more? While I prefer my Tension Tamer plain, Brad adds honey to it and seems to really like it that way. So if you're up for tea, but want it to be a bit more flavorful, you could try that. It defeats the whole no-calorie thing, though.
Still reading? Speaking of Brad, I finally put a picture of him on my desk at work; this is the first time I've had one since I was running the Observer. What was I waiting for? It's nice to be able to look at the smiling face of the person you love when you're at work, especially when you get frustrated. Plus, since the picture is from New Year's, 2000, it allows me to pretend I'm young again, or at least lose myself in thoughts of youth for a few minutes. I try not to think about whether I'd like to go back or not. No use contemplating things that can never be, right?
Alright: You may have the time and patience to keep reading this indefinitely, but I don't have similar proportions of those two qualities to continue writing. Perhaps if you denounce my writing about the merely prosaic again, I'll be tempted to indulge again in my contrarian fashion.
I thought it was a wonderful post. ;)
Although, I tend to prefer Twinings Irish Breakfast to Celestial Seasonings English Breakfast.
And a real yummy treat is Bigelow French Vanilla when you add Baileys as creamer.
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