Tea-obsessed? Me?
The day before Valentine's Day, I got a package from my favorite tea site, Adagio Teas. Odd thing was, I hadn't ordered anything from them! The card said "Happy Valentine's Day! love, your sissy" (two of my nieces call each other "sissy", and it stuck)
It was two boxes of their blooming tea! Here's what the box looks like, and one tea "bag" :)
Inside each bag is a little hand-woven ball like this.
The first time I brewed a cup, I used an opaque mug, and the pictures didn't turn out. My sister told me to try it in a glass mug (like they do on the website -- duh), so here's an old one my grandmother got in Japan a million years ago. You couldn't see it without this black potholder in the background :)
Pour the water on it, and it bounces to the top, then drops to the bottom of the mug. It's just a little rock-looking thing.
As it steeps, the leaves start unfurling, like pieces of grass.
And it starts to open up! See -- it's looking bloom-y!
It's dropping to the bottom, and looks more and more like a flower.
I don't know if you can tell, but
the flowers in this one formed a little arch. They were so pretty!
here's one shot from above . . .
and here's another
See the little arch shape? It was so pretty! And yes, a couple of leaves were floating around too :)
This was the jasmine bloom, and it really did smell flowery. Like something in a really good Chinese restaurant, only even better :)
This is some really yummy tea!
This is the picture of the red bloom (a black tea) from the other day and the opaque mug :) It kind of looked like a pink clover to me. And it was a REALLY good-tasting black tea. Very, very good :)
Unk kept saying it looked like a giant spider!
This is the best representation of the actual color. What can I say? It's just the camera on my phone :)
I had to take one final "display" shot before I tossed it. This one looks better out of the water, and the jasmine one looked better in the water. When I took it out, it was limp, but it sure was a pretty floating arch! It seemed a shame to throw this, but I finally did.
And then I ordered myself some new teapots (yes, from eBay) as a treat when I got my year-end bonus. Problem was, they were intended to be something totally fun and celebratory, and they took a REALLY LONG TIME to get here! For you eBayers in the know: EOA Feb 1, Ship date Feb 9, arrived at my house Feb 22. The shipper screwed up (one not in stock when I bought it), and then mis-entered my zip code, so they were sitting in a FedEx location less than 2 hours from my house for over a week. . .
This little lady bug one just cracks me up!
(and also makes me think of spedbug)
And this smiley face one is the end all and be all!
(and it's also not too flowery, so Unk doesn't mind if I make his tea in it)
Here's the only confusing thing. Two of the teapots came with these little wire things covered in plastic. I think they are probably to remove tea bags or infusers, but I've never seen something like these before, and there were no directions with them. Weird, no?
This makes me so happy :) Basically, I have my Polish teapot (the one from my icon, covered with the cozy made by the lovely yokospungeon, which holds a lot, but I don't want to use every day. It's from Poland, for crying out loud, and not really replaceable! So these can become my every day pots :) And they're already getting lots of use!
And that, my friends, is my month o' tea!
(Possibly more than anyone cared about, but I wanted to document my ever-increasing tea obsession.)
Oh, and if you want to place an order with Adagio, tell me or fsr44 or wandererjen (or some of the other Adagio fans), and we can send you a $5.00 gift cert from the site. . .to feed your addiction!