Monday, August 24, 2009

TRYING SOME NEW TEA


When I last placed an order from Special Teas for some Ceylon, my package included a ½ ounce sample of a delicious black tea called East Frisian Broken Blend. This is a wonderful strong robust black tea and one that would be delicious with savories served at afternoon tea. It is a mixture of Assam, Sumatra, and Java teas. This blend was also a winner in the 2008 World Tea Championship...One sip of this concoction, with milk and sugar, and you’ll instantly know why.

East Frisia, a part of the German Federal State of Lower Saxony on the North Sea, is second only to Ireland when it comes to tea consumption. According to Wikipedia, “East Frisian Tea is sweetened with kluntjes, a rock candy sugar that melts slowly, allowing multiple cups to be sweetened. Heavy cream is also used to flavor the tea. The tea is generally served in traditional small cups, with little cookies during the week and cake during special occasions or on weekends as a special treat. Brown rum, mixed with kluntjes and left for several months, is also added to black tea in the winter. The tea is alleged to cure headaches, stomach problems, and stress, among many other ailments”.

For a sample of this wonderful aromatic blend, visit Special Teas, and while you’re at it, you might want to try the Single Estate Ceylon. I’m partial to the Kenilworth Orange Pekoe (No317) which has a lovely hypnotic rose aroma.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

FAREWELL OLD FRIEND

It’s with a heavy heart that I post this morning for we have had a devastating loss here in our family. Yesterday afternoon we said farewell to our Lizzie. Lizzie’s health had progressively gotten worse this year. She was on a daily medication for hypothyroidism, had arthritis, was deaf, and had very recently lost her eye sight. She was disoriented and didn't even know you were in the room with her unless you touched her. She began walking into walls, doors, tables, etc.She couldn't make it down the three steps to our back yard without falling and then she couldn't see to get up them. Over the last week, my husband and I had to carry her in and out. Her kidneys were also beginning to fail. Her appetite was sporadic and she was coughing a great deal. The Vet reassured that we had made the right decision but that certainly doesn’t make it any easier.

Lizzie was 14 years old and we had 8 wonderful years with her. We adopted her from a local Shetland Sheep Dog Rescue group and that was the best decision we ever made. She had been in a previous home and surrendered, we were told, because the family preferred to have a Dalmatian over Lizzie. Though I’ll never understand that reasoning, it was truly their loss and our blessing. One thing that we can proudly boast about our old girl is that she was a true heroine. Lizzie actually saved a man’s life about six years ago. It was the coldest night of the year, a bitter icy February Saturday night. Our pipes in the house had frozen in the kitchen, like they have been prone to do, and John was thawing them out around 11:00PM at night. Both our girls, Anastasia and Lizzie, were out for their nightly constitutional when we heard Lizzie frantically growling and barking. This got our attention as well as our immediate neighbor’s. We knew Lizzie didn’t normally behave like that and that something was terribly wrong. As we opened the door, our neighbor was standing on her deck looking down over our fence. She told us that there was someone lying face down in our yard at the garden gate. Lizzie was over top of this person nearly on point, franticly barking and showing her teeth through her growls. The person, we later discovered from the police, was a local man, known around town bars, with a serious substance abuse problem. We figured out that he had evidently fumbled through the back yards and decks in our neighborhood, fell over our fence, and passed out in the snow. What the EMT and Police officers stressed to us, as they carried him out on a stretcher, was that because of Lizzie alerting us his life was saved and had he been outside for another hour he would have certainly frozen to death. I hope when he regained conscientiousness in his hospital room that someone told him that he owed his life to a Shetland Sheepdog.

Although we’ve been down this road before with Anastasia, Sasha, and Magic (the cat we lost last year), it was particularly agonizing to lose Lizzie. We’ll never forget her gentle spirit and loyal dedication. Our comfort is that she’s gone to the Rainbow Bridge to meet our other cherished family members (they’re so much more than pets) ,and that St. Francis has them all gathered around him, keeping a watchful eye over all the creatures he loves so much. Rest in Peace, sweet Lizzie; our lives are so much richer because of you...

Monday, August 10, 2009

THE TEA SOCIETY IS BACK!



As summer winds down and autumn grows near the tea society will be back in full swing. I have missed this blog and am delighted to be back. This summer was a wonderful time for me and my family and we had a great holiday in South Carolina and just spending time with one another before the hectic day to day routine of school and work begins in September. I wanted to return to the blog refreshed and ready to begin another year of blogging. With that said, I want to share a photo of my latest purchase along with mention of a delightful tea cookie company.

I found this charming little vintage tea pot at a shop called B and B antiques in the North Myrtle Beach area. There is no marking on the tea pot to reveal the manufacturer but it was so pretty and elegant that I decided to add it to my collection. Positioned in front of the tea pot is an offering of wonderful pecan tea cookies displayed on a tiny little white English Meakin dish. The tea cookies are from a wonderful Summerville, South Carolina based company called Southern Sisters. I look so forward to purchasing the dainty thin and delicious cookies on our annual jaunt to the Historic Market on Church Street in Charleston. The cookies are made from a handmade mix and they use all natural ingredients. This year I got an assortment of old fashioned ginger snaps, pecan, chocolate chip, and my favorite, lemon coolers dusted with a delicious powdery sugar coating. The benne wafers are also delicious and worth a sampling as well.

To learn more about the history of, and purchasing information for, Southern Sisters, please visit their website at http://www.southernsistersbakers.com/index.html . With no further ado, put the kettle one, pour a cuppa your favorite tea and enjoy these delicious treats, and welcome back to all the lovely followers of the Tea Society Blog.