Derp.

Ohhai!

So, my grand plan to tell you exactly how much tea I had throughout the week with a fancy chart kiiiinda fell through because I forgot to take into consideration one itty, bitty, tiny little thing:

I have the worlds shittiest memory that passes for non-impaired (unless it’s strings of numbers, in which case I will remember it for the rest of my goddamn life) and nothing to keep track of stuff outside of my laptop, which I don’t bring with me to work. Work being the place that I drink the most tea.

Duuuurrrrr.

So, no charts this week.  Sorry!

The good news? After a major cleanup of my disaster of a room, I’ve found notebooks that I can easily turn into food and drink (and tea!) journals so I can still keep track of these things on the odd occasion I’m somewhere that is not directly in front of my laptop.  With all this, I’m suddenly reminded of my stupidity last July.

So really, the moral of this story here is that I’m a dumbass, but at least I’m a dumbass that can learn from my dumbass mistakes.  Eventually.

In other news, do you remember that post way back about a year about me fixing my tea mug with a paperclip?  Of course you do.   Well it looks like the mug I’ve been using since…well, about since the time that I stopped breaking or losing all of the other mugs last year, is finally starting to sag in its old age.  It just can’t keep it up any more.

I’m not that surprised by how long it lasted: I’m very, very rough on my mugs.  I dropped this one twice getting to work just today.  Anyway, history is repeating itself today, because I have once again made a temporary fix for my tea mug by using a paperclip. This time I have a new and improved design!

Yes, now the lever is held up by the clip that hooks onto the top instead of just wedging the clip between the mug and the lever in the hopes that it will keep the lever from moving down(hint: it won’t. Not for very long, anyway.)  Mcgyver’d it, bitches.

If my ingenious clip skills work, maybe this will keep my tea from steeping in the water for so long that my nice oolong doesn’t even last three steeps.  Wish me luck!

Finally, I may move the blog to tumblr. Or I may direct tumblr posts here when I update. I’m not entirely sure which route I will take quite yet.  On one hand, I don’t like having to update more social things than I have to, but I also really, really like some of the features of blogger.  I’m kinda torn on this.

Whatever happens, I’ll make another post on it soon, I’m sure.

Till’ then!

Oh. That bitch.

Hey all, it’s been a while, but a couple of things have happened, during my long absence, so I decided to come back.

First off, I left because I got tired of always typing out “had [insert tea] this morning that’s exactly the same as the one I had yesterday. I’m writing the same thing I wrote yesterday. Why are you even reading this?”

Ok, maybe that’s not exactly what I wrote, but that’s how it felt.  It got even worse when money started getting tight, because suddenly I didn’t even have the money to buy enough teas to at least keep that daily list a little bit varied from day to day.  That thing were I got a cup of tea at lunch?  Yeah, not happening right now.

So I just…stopped. Altogether.

But what is so exciting that I’ve decided to drag myself out of super-lameness start up again?

Mostly, it's a new spreadsheet.

I’m such a nerd.

The spreadsheet isn't the only new thing I have to talk about though:  My local haunt, World Tea House has a fancy new website!  It's gotten a big facelift (actually, more like a face transplant), with a full list of teas, (all of which have gorgeous pictures) teaware, and they ship to other, far-off lands! (As in, outside of Canada.)  You should definitely go check it out. If nothing else, you should go and look at the pretty pictures of their teas. :3  Now stop what you're doing and go to worldteahouse.ca right now.  Don't worry, I'll wait.

OK, you're back now?  Let's continue:

In other news, I've had a tumblr for a while, but just now I finally decided to make a twitter account for BWATC.  Why?  Because the world needs to hear when I have a random thought relating to tea, apparently.  @BitchwATeacup.  The twitter limit was just one character short of actually being able to type out BitchWithATeacup. Motherfucker.

Now, what about that spreadsheet?

I’m a teensy bit crazy, so I’ve decided to try and keep track of different things I do on a regular basis.  This is purely because I like to play around with displaying data.

I just needed to get some data to play with.  Why not collect data from stuff I do? I might just learn something about myself.

One of the things I’ve started tracking is food and drink, and specifically tea.  Tea now has it's own seperate spreadsheet detailing how much tea I've had, what type it was, when I had it, and eventually I will have a column for estimating just how much caffeine I've ingested.

In terms of listing teas, I’m basically doing exactly what I used to by blogging about tea, only this time there are NUMBERS and SPREADSHEETS and….STUFF.

This is exciting, right?....right?

Yeah, I’m a nerd. D:

So yeah, expect more of the same “Here’s the tea I had yesterday.” Posts, but this time I’ll sprinkle it with a few tea reviews, tea-related things that have happened to me, and pretty, pretty graphs about my tea (over) consumption.

That's it, I'm done!

...with Monks Blend tea.

For now.

You know how I said before that I go through morning tea phases?  Well, for the past while that phase has been Monks Blend tea from World Tea House.  I like it a lot, but I've just had too much of it lately, and I'm ready to move on to something new.
And I've STILL got a redeemable tin of "tea of my choice" to bring in to the tea house some time.  Time to try something new, I think!

Oh, speaking of the tea house, the tea house will have a new website soon.  I can't wait to see it. :3

'Til next time!

Inspiration and Kicking This Morning in the Face

Fuck you morning, I am wide awake. Wide. A. Wake.

My roommate got a fancy new blender and, despite it being incredibly cranky and hard to clean, it makes a great smoothie.  For the next little while, I think breakfast will be breakfast smoothies.  I'll get the exact recipe from him later, but for now, this is what I imagine the recipe to be:

Banana
Fruit Juice
Crapload of frozen strawberries
Chia seeds

Just to make things interesting (read: awesome) he puts in some matcha powder.  You can really only taste it a little bit, since it's pretty much overpowered by the strawberries, but it still hits you like a matcha should.  That, combined with a cup of tea that I had before I remembered what breakfast was, has me awake now, but luckily not totally wired.

Side note:  make sure you brush your teeth after drinking one of these if you have anyone to impress right away.  The seeds keep getting stuck in my teeth.


Finally, inspiration.  I'm just not as inspired to talk about tea as much anymore.  I've gotten comfortable with my tea-drinking habits.  I'm not trying as much new stuff, so I'm not writing about it as much.  I don't want to just keep a daily log of tea I've had every day like I used to.  That just turns into two-three months of me saying "Started the day off with [insert tea]".  I go through predictable phases.  I've developed favorites.  I don't have as much to write about anymore.

This makes me kind of sad.

I want to find a way to make myself excited to write about tea again, but if I'm only writing about my own experiences currently, there's not much to write about.

I guess I just need to go get me some more experiences, no?

Oh. That bitch again.

I'm back, bitches.

First, the usual apology, I've been busy, lost track of time, blah blah blah, the usual.
In my defence, I did just move.
That's right, I finally moved out, got a sweet place in town and will now be able to throw the wildest tea parties ever.  WILD. CRAZY. TEA. PARTIES.  Thanks to that tea pot that I won from filling out all those frequent buyer adventure cards at World Tea House, I can actually serve tea to more than two people at once.  See?  Like I said, wild and crazy.

Second, even though I've been pretty much dead here, I've only been MOSTLY dead on tumblr, which you should totally check out right here.  There's pretty much nothing that I've written myself there, but there are lots of pictures of tea and tea-related things.

Third, I'd really like to actually go to different tea places around town.  I live a bit closer to some of them now, so watch out posts on places other than my usual hangout.

That's all for now.  Just giving you all fair warning that the Bitch is back.

Easy Teasy!

Remember when I said that if I married any type of tea I'd be unfaithful?

Well, being such an easy tea drinker (Let's call it being teasy) is not without benefits!
I popped into World Tea House after a very good Yoga class at Serpentine Studios (which I am still recovering from today) and found a lovely surprise waiting for me:  A new teapot!

Turns out that Phil had a secret contest where to see who had the most completed adventure cards.  The whole aim of the cards is not only to reward loyal customers, but to get those customers to try different kinds of tea.  Once you've filled out all of the sections, you can get a free tea of your choice.

I don't feel bad revealing what the secret contest was, because I have no idea what his next secret contest will involve.  Maybe it'll be a draw from whoever has gives him cupcakes...

I'd be lying if I didn't think the odds were just a teensy bit in my favor with this contest that just passed, what with me being so Teasy and all.  Ha! My wild tea drinking ways have served me well!

I'm really happy for the new pot, and not just because it would have cost me $50.
I only had a small pot that holds two cups, and a tea pinch for just one cup.  I didn't have anything for any occasion where I might serve tea to than one guest.  With my new pot, I can now throw a wild, wild tea party!  Plus it matches the set of glass cups that I picked up in December.  How awesome is that?

Before I left I chatted with Phil about how I could never settle down with just one kind of tea.  He's pretty much in the same boat.  He said he couldn't even be faithful to just tea, since he occasionally drinks coffee.  I can't stand the taste of coffee, but I will never say no to an offered hot chocolate.

We agreed that we're both tea sluts.  I think I'd like a different word though, if only because I love looking looking up terms for being easy.  Tea Hussy?  Tart?  Trollop?  What else could be used?


Oh yes, because it was St. Pat's day yesterday, I decided to treat myself to a green tea latte:

My beverage of choice for St. Pat's.  Much less likely to get me in silly situations than beer.  Better tasting, too.


'Til next time!

Tea + Food: What Goes With What?

Alright, I have to admit to something:  I don't usually put much thought into how food will taste if I drink a particular kind of tea with it.  If I feel like a particular tea, I usually only think about the tea, not what I'll be eating with it.  This has lead to some awful mistakes in the past.  I'd put thought into it if I were choosing wine, so why not tea?

The one exception to this would be if I'm about to eat something spicy.  My favorite tea to drink with spicy food has to be mint.  I like the cooling sensation after deliciously burning my mouth.

I suppose I also like black tea with sweet things like cakes and cookies.  That's a pretty common thing though, to balance out bitter tea with sweet treats, right?

Anyway, I will try to pay more attention to the tea I drink with food, and how I put them together.

Does anyone else have any favorite teas to drink while eating different foods?

Marshmallow Latte and Pretty Things

Well.  I needed to head into town today to pop into Pretty Things Boutique.  I needed to actually get around to paying my application fee for Pretty Things' So You Think You Can Prance contest.   If you're a)around and b)not related to me, you should totally come check this out!
Anyway, because I had to come in to pay it, this of course means that I need to stay in Halifax all day unless I want to walk home.  Since I have a bellydance class later today, I might as well just stay.

Stupid bus strike. :/

Anyway, now that my errand has been run, I've decided to sit down and enjoy some tea.  Big surprise, right?  After having tried the vanilla black/russian caravan mix at home, I decided to try it as a latte here today to see if it tasted more marshmallow-y.

I think the ratio I used of 1/4 russian caravan and 3/4 vanilla black was a bit more marshmallowy, but it's still pretty yummy.  Maybe it would work better with just Lapsang? I think it's a recipe that might need some tweaking, but I think it'll be worth the effort.

That's really all for now.  Til next time!

Campfire Marshmallows, and the Return of a Fave

Well.  Lookie who got herself a part time job downtown?  Me.  I did.

Three guesses where I go for lunch breaks.

During one break last week, I was chatting with Haleigh and she mentioned a mix I hadn't thought of:
Russian Caravan and Vanilla Black.  Now, Russian Caravan has Lapsang Suchong in it, so it's a nice, full, smokey flavor.  I never would have thought to combine it with....well, anything really, but especially not something sweet like vanilla black.

It tastes a bit like roasted marshmallows.  It's actually pretty good.  I think I might get a cup next time I'm in.  I couldn't today though, because there was something much more important to drink:

The coco-cocoa freakin' pu-ehr latte is back on special at World Tea House.  SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS, YES!

I'm currently finishing up my cup right now.  I'm pretty sure if I could marry any tea, this would be the tea for me.

....Ok, that's not really true.  We all know that I'd be unfaithful.  But it would be a fun honeymoon!

'Til next time!

This Bus Strike is Interfering With My Tea Consumption

Well, that new job placement I had that had me waking up at 5:00 am is over, unfortunately, but there may be another coming along to replace it soon.  In the meantime the only tea I have to drink is the tea I already own, since I can't get into town, since there are no busses running at the moment.

Gah, can't they see how this strike is cutting into my tea time?  This is so unfair!

I've only been out for tea a couple of times, mostly between dance classes.  Oh well.

At home I was starting off my mornings with either hot rod or coco-cocoa, but now that the job is done I don't need to make myself wake up quite so urgently.

One fun experiment of Phil's was some black matcha:  Ground up assam tea.  It was pretty good, although apparently it's great with milk.
It's also so full of caffeine that it gave me jitters and had me up until the early morning.

I think that's it for my tea experiences lately.  Not having any way to go anywhere kind of cuts down on new things you can do...

Less tea, less posting, more money.

So, all of my bitching about being totally broke and having no money paid off!  I'm sure it had absolutely nothing to do with working for a few temp agencies and one of them finally calling me to work.  Nope, it was totally all my bitching.

Anyway, working all day and not having as much access to the internets while at work meant not as much updating during the day.  This coupled with the fact that I went from being a nocturnal creature to having to wake up at 5:00 am just to get to work on time meant I was pretty much dead for the past couple of weeks.

In short:  I actually have a good excuse for not updating.  Hopefully now that I've got a normal sleep schedule I'll be able to use my free time to write more instead of just catch up on sleep.

Anyway, here's a quick list of tea-related things that have happened since I last updated:

I got an amazing gift of spicy, spicy tea from Krista.  'Tis awesome.
New job is faaar away from the tea house. :(
New job's lunch room does have a kettle and even a few loose teas and a tea ball.  I tried the earl grey and wasn't super impressed, but the fact that it's there at all is a good sign!
There's a bus strike.  I managed to forget my dance cane at the tea house the day before the strike.  It's in the lost and found, but I haven't been able to actually go there to pick it up. :(\

Also, I drank lots of tea. Lots and lots of tea.  Mostly hot rod just to get started, but sometimes I went with my wonderful coco-cocoa.

Unrelated to tea:  I'm thinking of starting a "Dancey and fitness related shit I do" blog, since I do enough that I could blog about it, I guess.  It'll probably only have a teensy bit to do with tea, since the dance studio I'm at all the time does serve tea from World Tea House.

Finally, I'm going to be moving in a couple of months.  To the other side of the harbour!  This is both exciting and scary.  I'll be moving into my first place, mom is probably moving into her second-last place, and I'm going to have to be all grown-up now.
More importantly though:  I'm going to be closer to the tea house.  I'm going to be within walking distance of the tea house.  THERE WILL BE SO MUCH TEA.

This is really exciting! Hopefully I'll be able to write about all of it now. :3

Oh Yeah, That Bitch

So, I think that most that read this also know about my tumblr, Bitch With a Teacup,  but for those who don't, now you do!  Go check it out...and then probably get hungry.

I like matcha deserts.  There will probably be a lot of those.

Coco-Not So Much, and the Earned Cupcake

A few things to chat about today: a blend of teas I tried, teas I've had to drink while dancing, and what I'm going to write about.

First, a new blend I tried.  Krista was working one day when she thought of trying some coconut black tea with the coconut cocoa pu-ehr, to try and get more of a coconut taste into it.  Now, if you've read this blog much, you know I looooove my coco-choco, but I agree that it doesn't have the strongest coconut taste.
Except adding the coconut black didn't really make the taste any stronger either, it just kinda made it taste a bit more like black tea.  It was still a nice cup of tea, but not really coconutty.  Oh well.  Maybe next time, Krista.  By the way, usually when she thinks up something, it turns out to be really good.  If you happen to be in the area and pop into World Tea House, don't go ignoring the sage advice of the people who work there just because this one cup didn't work out as well as we'd hoped!  They know their shit.

Speaking of knowing your shit, tomorrow World Tea House is offering a TEA101 class tomorrow. (Jan 16th) It's $10 for 5 teas and a tea talk by owner, Phil Holmans.  Personally, I'm skipping because I know tea basics and I'm so broke, but if you happen to be around and wanted to learn more about teas, you should totally go!

And since I've already talked about my second home, World Tea House, today, now it's time to talk about my third home, Serpentine Studios.  I've started just bringing my travel mug with me so that I can fill it up with tea while I'm at the studio.  They serve tea from World Tea House there, so I know I'm always going to like what they have there.  More importantly though, can I just talk about how awesome it is right after you've had a good dance class to just sit down and have a few sips of tea before heading back out into the world?  Tea is pretty much always a great way to press pause for a minute, but it's an especially welcome pause after a workout.  Even if it has caffeine in it, a tea break is always at least a little bit relaxing for me.


And on the topic of good classes, I had some tough ones yesterday!  I'm pretty awful at them right now, but I enjoy all of them and I'm going to stick with them until I get better!  I was sooooo tired after my classes yesterday though that I decided to treat myself to a cupcake.  I'm really broke so I shouldn't be getting anything more than just tea when I go out (and I really shouldn't be going out either), but fuck it.  I earned that cupcake this week.

Finally,  what I'm actually going to write about.  I'm still trying to figure that out.  Obviously, I'm going to talk about tea, but that covers a surprising amount of info.  If it didn't, I wouldn't still be writing about tea after a year.

Oh hey, I've been doing this for a year!  Go me!


Anyway, I've noticed that if I keep track of all the tea I've had to drink, it provides me with more opportunities to write something halfway-halfway (or just one quarter) insightful about tea, but it usually just turns into a journal of tea I've had.  If I only update when something new happens though, I don't update as much.  Tricky.


I'm going to try and do a bit of both.  It won't be a daily update, but it will be regular, and there will be a log of tea I've had as well as anything interesting that might have happened that week.


Let's see how long this lasts...

Notes from Experimenting

Alright, if you've seen the few posts I've been re-blogging on my Bitch With a Teacup tumblr, you know that it's pretty much all matcha deserts.

Well, I want deserts that feature some other kind of tea!

So I decided to make some:  Chai Nog Latte Cupcakes!

...except they still need some work, and I'm all out of egg nog now.  I'm still messing around with the recipe.  I'll post the actual recipe and some pictures once it's perfected, but for now, I'll share my "study" notes:

-I am baking powder/soda dyslexic. :(
-wasn't chai-y enough. Added a bit more cinnamon. No cloves left. Must get grinder.
-Added 1 egg.  No egg in original recipe. WTF?
-Batch 1 did not rise.  Needs more baking powder.
-Batch 2 still did not rise. Added a bit more. Now batter tastes baking powdery.
-Added a pinch of ginger and cloves. Stole mom's coffee grinder. Added liberal sprinkling of sugar.
-Batch 3, cupcakes are rising.
-My "testers" say there is too much ginger.  I believe they are crazy.  May still scale back the ginger a bit.
-Finally getting the right shape. Over-baked batch 4.  Batch 5 was out on time though.
-Cupcakes are too dry and sticky.  Added more oil.
-Cupcakes are no longer super sticky.  Yay oil!


And I'm sure that next time I get around to it there will be even more notes to add.  Hopefully next time I won't mix up the baking powder and baking soda again...

'Til next time!

Tea: The Manliest of Manly Drinks

Well, I was reading Mz. Magazines Marketing by Masculinizing the Feminine and while reading it I stumbled upon manteas.com  Here's the list of teas they have available, including jalapeño, RadioactiviTEA, and three different flavours featuring bacon.
With the manly flavours, manly-looking website, products and rather suggestive logo, I think the only way to make it any more manly would be to have explosions coming out of every cup.

But this got me thinking:  Since when hasn't drinking tea been manly?  Or at least gender neutral?  Certainly, I've never thought of it as being particularly girly.  The exception to this might be a little girl throwing a tea party with her stuffed animals. When it comes to actually drinking actual tea though, I've never thought it was particularly feminine.  Whether it's out of a tea set or, more likely, the exact same mismatched mugs you drink your coffee out of, I just haven't felt particularly girly while drinking tea.

Have I been wrong all this time?  Have i just not noticed that tea (or rather, marketing for tea) has been geared toward me because of my ladyparts?  Have I just taken various tea companies' extra consideration of my gender for granted?  Or is it just because it doesn't necessarily cater specifically to men that it is seen as not manly?  And how does this view differ from culture to culture?  Is it the teacups?

It's the teacups, isn't it?  Extending the pinky, maybe?

Anyway, this topic gives me lots to think about, I guess.  For now, I leave you with this:

'Til next time!

And for those of you that keep bitching about the layout...

For those friends that didn't like the layout:  I finally got around to actually thinking about it.  If you've still got a problem with it, there are two steps to take:

1.  Kiss my ass.
2.  Fix it yourself.

And bonus(!) third step:  Make me some tea.

On a serious note, if there actually are any problems, or if you have any suggestions, I suppose you can skip those steps and just tell me what it is you'd like fixed.  Making me tea would still be appreciated though.

Sweet, Sweet Matcha!

Sooooo, I just got back from seeing Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows with friends.  I think it was a pretty good movie.  There were parts I didn't like, but even the parts I didn't enjoy as much were still visually pleasing.
And there was Robert Downy Jr.  He is also quite visually pleasing.  Oh yes.

Anyway, afterward we were in the mood for tea (surprise, surprise) but World Tea House had already closed by then.  Our second choice for tea, DavidsTea, was also closed.  We settled on Second Cup, because I like their hot chocolate.

It looks like Second Cup is starting to include some better tea choices....but the loose leaf tea they sell, while in a bag that would be big enough to let the whole loose tea expand, looks like it's made of plasticy gauze in the pictures.  Nuh-uh, not for me. I don't want plasticy stuff in my hot drink, thank you very much.

Instead I figured it would be safe to go with a matcha latte.  It's just steamed milk and matcha powder mixed in, right?

Holy sweet matcha, it was sweet matcha.  Very sweet.

And this brings us to the reason that I like Second Cup's hot chocolate:  their drinks are really, really sweet.  They tend to be sweet, and then covered in whipped cream.  This kinda works with their hot chocolate which tastes like hot sugar in a cup anyway.  I don't think it works for a green tea latte, because the actual matcha taste is pretty much totally drowned out with that much sugar. (But not whipped cream.  I think that's just for the hot chocolate.)  They either used very sweet matcha with sugar added to it, or they added a sweetener to the drink while making it.  Either way, it's too sweet for me.  Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think that the drink was unenjoyable; I just don't think it tasted like matcha.  Not bad if you're going for green sugar in a cup though.

Sweet Matcha Latte:  It looks a bit like pond scum, and tastes like sugar!

...Ok, so maybe I shouldn't go into advertising.  Good thing working in advertising wasn't one of my lifelong dreams.
As for looking like pond scum, well...that always happens with matcha lattes.  Luckily, they taste far better than they look.  If I had been thinking, I would have snapped a picture.

In other tea-related news, I found my tin of ginger mint tea!  I wish I'd had some with me on New Years Eve.  Not because I had been drinking to the point of sickness, but because I was eating sushi.  I was eating sushi to the point of self-hatred.
I paid for all you can eat, and I was going to eat all that I could, dammit!  A few sips of ginger mint after shoving my face with as much rice and seaweed wrapped seafood as I could would have really helped me.  Oh well.  Lesson learned for next year.

As for my upset tummy backup tea, the licormint tea, I still like it quite a bit, but I think I'll stick with something with a bit of ginger in it for when I'm feeling sick. (And by "with a bit of" I mean "50-100%")  I still have yet to try the licormint iced.  I think it would make a lovely, sweet drink cold.  I also found the website for the store where my friend picked it up, The Feel Good Store.  Unfortunately the site doesn't really have anything on their products, but it does have their twitter and facebook feeds to follow.

That's really it for me and tea lately.

'Til next time!