Read this post with a British accent

My buddy Jean, whose blog is a veritable treasure trove of nutritional info, posted a few days ago about her great love of tea. I enjoy a nice cuppa myself, especially this time of year, so of course I ordered one of everything she recommended, because I may have a wee bit o' the internet shopping addiction.

I received my new goodies on Friday, and I am totally enchanted with this little ingenuiTEA pot from Adagio Teas. It makes using loose tea every bit as easy as using tea bags, and in just three short days it has turned me into a tea snob. It is microwavable, so you just boil the water in the microwave, add the tea, steep for 5 minutes and set it on top of your cup. The perfect tea drips down into your cup, leaving the leaves in the filter, which you simply rinse out. One can also pour boiling water into the ingenuiTEA if one's tea snobbery extends to the use of microwaving devices.



I also had to have this beautifully simple glass mug. I don't add any milk or sugar to my tea, or at least I haven't added any to the 75 cups I've had in the last 3 days, and I don't plan to any time soon. I had no previous experience with loose tea, so when I made my first cup I used about a tablespoon of leaves, which turns out to be about three times too much. I'm not going to tell you, though, about how I was trying to fill the ingenuiTEA with water while resting it on the edge of the sink, which opens the valve on the bottom and may or may not have resulted in a lot of water on the floor and a bit of puzzlement about why the pot was not getting full. Because sharing that story would be embarrassing.



I had ordered sampler sets of black teas and holiday flavored teas so that I could avoid commitment before deciding what I like best. I literally gasped with delight when I opened the sampler boxes and saw these adorable tiny tins. They are so going to be altered after I drink a boatload more tea. If I had fifteen more I could make the cutest advent calendar ever.



When Annamarie had Epizootics* yesterday, I whipped her up a cup of peppermint tea (it was really candy cane flavor, but play along, OK?) and there was something so comforting about it. For me, anyway.

To go along with my tea theme, I procured a packet of Pim's biscuits at the market today. Do drop in and have a spot of tea with me.



*I was about to write about how my Papaw made up this word to describe any unpleasant illness, especially those involving upsets of a digestive nature, but it turns out that "epizootics" is a real word! And just to show you how my husband's memory is a freak of nature, when I shared this information with him incredulously just now, he said, "Oh yeah, it was in the movie Rambling Rose with Robert Duvall."