Kevin Last week was Hot Tea Day, but what I ended up posting took front seat on the day it fell on, and I figured I could set it aside and talk about it some other time.
No better time like the present, after all, because to me, hot tea in a flavor you like really says “self-care.” This time 6 years ago, “self-care” meant a can of Surge in a gold glitter Kate Spade can cozy. Seriously, I loved that stuff as a kid, and was stoked to see it make a comeback. Now if they ever put out a diet version of it, I’m totally gonna try it.
Anyway, we’re coming up on the presidential inauguration, which is tomorrow, and we’re also in a pandemic. That means, this year’s inaugural festivities will look different, and a lot of us will be watching them from home.
This time of year, especially in my neck of the woods, it’s pretty cold outside. The weather report says today’s high will reach 37 degrees Fahrenheit, and drop down to 11 degrees tonight. As you probably know, the wind knocks the temperature down even more, and the snow already on the ground also contributes.
Since there’s no events going on right now, and people are closing shops earlier than they did this time a year ago, staying in was my plan today. The wind and the cold are enough that I can feel it through my drafty bedroom windows, and the cold temperatures show no signs of ending.
Today feels like the perfect day for soup. But there’s just one little problem: I had the last of the tomato soup I got last week, and I forgot to get my favorite type of noodles for some quickie ramen.
Then that means a change of plan: hot tea. Yes, yours truly likes her tea. But I limit myself to just one cup of it, and it’s also not an everyday thing either.
If someone had told me this time back in high school that I’d come to like tea, I’d write them off as insane, or just assume they were smoking some seriously powerful crack or whatever. At that time, I can understand why. The only tea I’d ever had exposure to was that cheap stuff found on every single store shelf in the solar system. I won’t say the name of it, btw, but I hated the way it smelled, and couldn’t get past the smell of it enough to taste it.
I’m convinced that stuff’s gotta be made from the sawdust swept from the floors of high-school and middle-school wood shop classrooms.
I’m not exactly sure how I got into giving tea another chance, but if my memory serves me right, I had an offer for any variety that isn’t the wood shop sawdust brand on Ibotta a few years back, and saw that it was on sale to boot. I picked up some chamomile vanilla, along with some apple cinnamon. It wasn’t the same type of apple cinnamon tea I’d tried several years before and loved, but it was very close to it. At that time, it was just before I started losing the weight, so I’d I’d dump heavy cream and raw sugar in the apple cinnamon too. It was the perfect way to end my day, and as my taste buds adjusted from the highly-processed stuff I used to eat, I took a liking to that apple cinnamon tea on its’ own, along with that chamomile vanilla.
It’s been history ever since. Today, I’m having myself a cup of hot tea, specifically the seasonal Christmas in Paris variety from Stash. I got through the last of what I already had back in November, and when I saw it was back on the store shelves this year, I got two boxes to stock up on it for the rest of the winter. I love how it reminds me of hot chocolate, and how it really says “winter.”
Aside from this, I’ve also come to love Bengal Spice from Celestial Seasonings, this white peony stuff in a bulk section at a health food store, and Lotus Blossom Green from Tazo. I also saw the Rose Pink Latte on the Target app, and I’m hoping I get the chance to try it out sometime soon.
How about you, readers? What’s your favorite kind of tea? If you’re not a fan of tea, then what’s your favorite hot drink?
