As someone who loves tea so much i needed a spreadsheet to keep track of my different flavors, and who is currently not allowed to have dairy, I feel this in my soul :D
Wow, sounds like you have a really exciting tea life with plenty of different flavours! I’d love to be more adventurous - I alternate between just three types: ‘ordinary’ tea, peppermint tea and decaf black tea.
In my twenties I drank soya milk for a while (in those days it was the only milk-free milk available!) and I always felt it made my tea taste like breakfast cereal. I wonder how oat milk or almond milk would taste in a cuppa? Might give it a try one day!
In theory at least. Right now, I can't drink them very often because caffeine tends to give me palpitations. Plus, like you, I find plant-based milk quite odd in my tea, unfortunately. I'd love to eliminate all dairy forever and not just now, but if my doctor ever allows me, I'll go back to putting regular milk into my regular black tea and leave the oat milk for my cereal.
If you feel like experimenting with flavored tea, Mlesna sells a bunch on ebay straight from Sri Lanka and you can even make them cold in a pitcher of water in the fridge.
Gosh, I’m sorry about the palpitations - that must be scary. I gather even decaf black tea and coffee have a trace of caffeine remaining - is that right? For a couple of years I drank tea without milk, but then during the Covid lockdowns I found I was ‘chain-drinking’ the stuff, and noticed too late what it was doing to my TEETH! I take milk in it again now, just to keep my dentist happy. 🤣
Thank you! I can have decaf, but since I don't like black tea straight, but I can't have dairy right now, I'm abstaining. I do drink decaf green tea for its health benefits, though!
Hopefully, some day before my collection of teas expires, I can have tea with milk and sugar again ^^;
And that article is hilarious! I actually only started drinking black tea as an adult, since my German parents are coffee and herbal tisane drinkers, and they claim that black tea keeps them up at night while coffee does not. They put lemon in their herbal tea and maaaaaaybe a bit of milk into their coffee, but no one in the whole family drinks black tea, let alone with milk and sugar. I got into the habit in Japan, during grad school, because grad students need caffeine, obviously, and Japan has milk tea ready to drink in bottles in all the vending machines. Speaking of dentists, I think my dentist would prefer if I drank my black tea straight without the sugar lol
Fingers crossed for future tea with milk and sugar! 🤞
You’ve reminded me of how confusing I would find it during my stays in Germany to be offered ‘Schwarztee’ - black tea - because as a Brit, ‘black tea’ always meant ‘tea without milk’. My au-pair kids laughed at me for ages when I said ‘Nein, Weißtee, bitte!’ - because apparently ‘white tea’ isn’t a thing….! Anyway, I took to asking for ‘Schwarztee mit Milch’ - and then when I went home everybody laughed at me there by asking for what was essentially an oxymoron - ‘black tea with milk’!
As if life weren’t difficult enough without all that! 🤣
And wow, I never thought about that! Weißtee is a thing, of course, but I guess the difference is "do you take your tea black?" vs. "this is my favorite black tea" if that makes sense? And of course, you shouldn't have to specific black tea because herbal "tea" isn't truly tea, so "Tee" should automatically mean "Schwarztee" but most people don't know that...
My parents insist that they drink lots of tea, but they only drink tisanes and herbal infusions, our of Japanese tea pots, and it bothers me a little lol
I am a milk-in-tea drinker (green, not black, don't shun me), but I use heavy cream. Milk doesn't give me the satisfaction I crave. I liken this to my evolution with dark chocolate. There was a time I could be satisfied with 60% cacao, but that soon went to 70% and so on. I'm now settled in a 90% and could not be happier.
And bats -- much as I adore them -- in a hotel room is not a good advertisement from an establishment.
Oh gosh, that’s so interesting - my MIL drinks green tea, and I’ve had plenty of cups with her, but never with milk (or indeed cream)!
When I was at university I had a great tea-drinking friendship with a chap down the hall and we’d meet up in his room during breaks from essay-writing a couple of afternoons a week for a time-limited cuppa and a chat. He was a third-year, and I a first-year, and to me he was the HEIGHT of sophistication, because he had his own kettle in his room. No fridge, though - so he used powdered Coffeemate coffee creamer - in tea! It tasted extraordinary, but I soon got used to it.
I love dark chocolate, too - I buy the 85% variety, either Lindt or Green & Black’s. Happily (as a type 1 diabetic) there’s far less carbohydrate in that than in milk chocolate, which of course is mostly sugar.
I never knew the joys of tea until I spent a summer in London via university in 1986. I was addicted. Alas, a milk allergy followed and today tea is just not the same with almond milk. Blech. I found a wonderful caffeine free Japanese green tea.
BTW, there are some great documentaries about Hitchcock,.
Wow, thanks for the link! BEAUTIFUL!!! Dad used to bring back jasmine flower tea from the Far East - actually there’s still a jar of the tiny little balls in their kitchen. When you add boiling water they uncurl. Delicious, too.
There’s nothing like a cup of tea to lift the soul, Rebecca. I wish the same could be said for the roads. Around here my teeth literally shake and my bones rattle as I make the treacherous journey to work and back daily. And that bat? 🦇 OMG! A friend of mine, many years ago, discovered one in her house and constantly wore a towel turban for fear of it getting stuck in her hair!
The roads are terrible, aren’t they?! I live on an unmade lane, and I’m used to all the potholes and the fact that any remaining tarmac on the surface is dissolving into tiny pieces, but when I drive out of the village it’s on ‘proper’ roads which are becoming a similar sorry state!
That’s the fear many people have with bats, isn’t it, that they’ll get stuck in your hair? I wonder why that is? Perhaps it happens, but I’m sure if I were a bat I’d give people’s heads a wide berth…
Cryptic crosswords are beyond me. This statement ‘‘worried’ is telling me to look for an anagram’ left me going Que??? And the batty situation was interesting. That’s a good-sized bat! I had a tiny microbat share my pillow with me once. Not sure which of us was more terrified. I was sound asleep and awoke to find this fluttering thing on my pillow. Queue heart attack!
I love your bat story! Gosh, I don’t think I’d have liked having a bat on my pillow! We had one in our bedroom at home one summer evening - it had flown in and got caught up in a curtain. It flopped around for a bit and I managed to gently catch it in my hands. It flew off into the night and gosh, it felt awesome to have been in such close company with such a fascinating creature. 😊
Your trinity of tea drawing is the best! What a great poster, or t-shirt it would make!!! I love it and I also love an ellipse that might go rogue at any moment. Well done, RH! And that bat - it looks HUGE! Was it in your room or a common area? I don't think I could sleep at all with it flying about, or even if it was just thinking about flying . . . . Your campervan sounds lovely, too. P.S. The pothole flower pots are a great example of "use what you have". 😄
LOL - it was in our bedroom, and that video was shot from IN BED!!! We thought it was absolutely brilliant to have our very own bat - we still talk about it now! 🤣
The bat calmed down after a short while, and we didn’t see him again. It seemed very much ‘at home’ - I wonder if it had simply roosted in a quiet corner once the lights were off, or whether he went out of the window.
We horrified Jim’s clients by telling them all about it at breakfast next morning! 🤣
Love your letters, Rebecca! And yes, there are SO many kinds of milk here! I guess that's so those of us who are "lactose intolerant" (I didn't know that was even a thing, until I developed it!) or "vegan" have plenty of choices. But, what confuses me, are the "nut milks" I mean, how does one even approach, say, an almond, to milk it?
Alfred Hitchcock used to have a home here in Santa Cruz, California. I also love his movies. After watching "Psycho", it took me years to feel safe in a shower...."The Birds" is also a great movie, based on a true story that took place here in Capitola, California, in the early 1960's.
LOL Sharon - you’ve given me a hilarious mental image of attempts at almond milking… 🤣
Ooooh, it’s so interesting that Hitchcock lived in your neighbourhood. I’m not sure I’ll ever psych myself up to watching Psycho, but I did see The Birds years ago - it really frightened me - and I really love birds!
It is so funny to me how you and Terry can talk about all aspects of finding a good cup of tea, week by week, and it is so entertaining! And I don't even drink tea! As far as sketchy hotels go, you might scroll through this little story by J Curtis. He gives a description of a hotel room that will make you want a shower after reading it. In my low budget travels, I have never quite sunk to this level. Brilliant writer.
So you can always ask for milk for your tea, or half and half which comes in little plastic containers. Same for coffee. Waitresses are usually good at giving you those when asked. I always ask for honey as I don’t like sugar.
Alfred Hitchcock was the scary/suspense movie guy when I was a kid. I always loved Rear Window. The Birds was really scary, but it made me think about all the horrible things we do to animals without worrying about repercussions. Thank you as always!
And I could not have gotten “social” in a million years lol
That's great to know - thanks, Julie! I've just Googled 'half and half' - I think I'd thought it meant 'semi-skimmed', but no, it's literally half milk and half cream - yummy!
(Have also Googled semi-skimmed milk - apparently that's 2% milk over there.)
I haven't seen Rear Window, but it's on my list of things to watch. The BBC are running a lot of Hitchcocks at the moment - I'll keep my eyes peeled for that one. I'd like also to watch the 1998 version, which starred Christopher Reeve.
When my pa and I went to the USA, when I was 15, we went bearing comestibles for my aunt (his sister) and the Customs people confiscated the lot. I had a bottle of water confisctaed, and this was before the pandemic: back in 2006. Still, they let me take a bag of nuts and raisins through. The customs officer asked me why I had them and I replied that m,y wife was worried that I might starve over the last 12 hours despite being on a plane where they don't stop offering you food. That was true actually. Anyway, he didn't crack a smile but just grunted and let me though, with the aforesaid nuts and raisins. He was probably thinking "Eccentrentric Brits. Thank goodness we told them to take a hike back in 1776."
I didn't like that xword clue. I mean, full marks to BethT for almost solving it, but as I wrote to you in an email, and as I've expanded on in my reply, I don't think it's a proper clue. Great to try though: I find creating a decent clue pretty hard.
It's on my bucket list to one day attempt to send a haggis to the United States, Terry. 🤫
Beth T DID solve it, and she wins a gold star for absolutely nailing it.
The-alphabet = a line in the alphabet = QUEUE.
.............Okay, so the fact that I have done nothing in my clue to tell you to turn 'Q' into 'QUEUE' *might* be considered by some to be a sliiiiiiiiight oversight in my clue construction, but c'mon, Lord Tel, it's not MUCH of a jump, so the fact remains that I'M very clearly a genius and YOU are simply being obstructive. 😉
Beth T ALMOST nailed it, and well done to her for that, but she wasn't sure why, or at least not completely. Also, we Brits tend not to use the word 'line' meaning queue, plus it's not a line, it's a dash, which is a different thing altogether. Admit it, Becks, your so-called slight oversight meant that the clue was virtually unsolvable. I rest my case.
And yes, owing to an unfortunate omission of the word 'also' somewhere in my comment, I was indeed only 15 in 2006. I've led a hard life so look a lot older.
Next you’ll be telling me that an S-shape is no longer permitted to be referred to as a ‘squiggle’, nor an i to be called ‘a vertical line with a dot above it’. 🙄
An s shape can be referred to as LIKE a squiggle, and a squiggle can be referred to as LIKE an s, but an s is not a squiggle and a squiggle is not an s. I rest my case.
As someone who loves tea so much i needed a spreadsheet to keep track of my different flavors, and who is currently not allowed to have dairy, I feel this in my soul :D
Wow, sounds like you have a really exciting tea life with plenty of different flavours! I’d love to be more adventurous - I alternate between just three types: ‘ordinary’ tea, peppermint tea and decaf black tea.
In my twenties I drank soya milk for a while (in those days it was the only milk-free milk available!) and I always felt it made my tea taste like breakfast cereal. I wonder how oat milk or almond milk would taste in a cuppa? Might give it a try one day!
In theory at least. Right now, I can't drink them very often because caffeine tends to give me palpitations. Plus, like you, I find plant-based milk quite odd in my tea, unfortunately. I'd love to eliminate all dairy forever and not just now, but if my doctor ever allows me, I'll go back to putting regular milk into my regular black tea and leave the oat milk for my cereal.
If you feel like experimenting with flavored tea, Mlesna sells a bunch on ebay straight from Sri Lanka and you can even make them cold in a pitcher of water in the fridge.
Gosh, I’m sorry about the palpitations - that must be scary. I gather even decaf black tea and coffee have a trace of caffeine remaining - is that right? For a couple of years I drank tea without milk, but then during the Covid lockdowns I found I was ‘chain-drinking’ the stuff, and noticed too late what it was doing to my TEETH! I take milk in it again now, just to keep my dentist happy. 🤣
I wrote this post about my tea-drinking habit a little while ago - you might enjoy the read! https://rebeccaholden.substack.com/p/102-old-gold-expec-tea-tion
Thank you! I can have decaf, but since I don't like black tea straight, but I can't have dairy right now, I'm abstaining. I do drink decaf green tea for its health benefits, though!
Hopefully, some day before my collection of teas expires, I can have tea with milk and sugar again ^^;
And that article is hilarious! I actually only started drinking black tea as an adult, since my German parents are coffee and herbal tisane drinkers, and they claim that black tea keeps them up at night while coffee does not. They put lemon in their herbal tea and maaaaaaybe a bit of milk into their coffee, but no one in the whole family drinks black tea, let alone with milk and sugar. I got into the habit in Japan, during grad school, because grad students need caffeine, obviously, and Japan has milk tea ready to drink in bottles in all the vending machines. Speaking of dentists, I think my dentist would prefer if I drank my black tea straight without the sugar lol
Fingers crossed for future tea with milk and sugar! 🤞
You’ve reminded me of how confusing I would find it during my stays in Germany to be offered ‘Schwarztee’ - black tea - because as a Brit, ‘black tea’ always meant ‘tea without milk’. My au-pair kids laughed at me for ages when I said ‘Nein, Weißtee, bitte!’ - because apparently ‘white tea’ isn’t a thing….! Anyway, I took to asking for ‘Schwarztee mit Milch’ - and then when I went home everybody laughed at me there by asking for what was essentially an oxymoron - ‘black tea with milk’!
As if life weren’t difficult enough without all that! 🤣
Thank you!
And wow, I never thought about that! Weißtee is a thing, of course, but I guess the difference is "do you take your tea black?" vs. "this is my favorite black tea" if that makes sense? And of course, you shouldn't have to specific black tea because herbal "tea" isn't truly tea, so "Tee" should automatically mean "Schwarztee" but most people don't know that...
My parents insist that they drink lots of tea, but they only drink tisanes and herbal infusions, our of Japanese tea pots, and it bothers me a little lol
I am a milk-in-tea drinker (green, not black, don't shun me), but I use heavy cream. Milk doesn't give me the satisfaction I crave. I liken this to my evolution with dark chocolate. There was a time I could be satisfied with 60% cacao, but that soon went to 70% and so on. I'm now settled in a 90% and could not be happier.
And bats -- much as I adore them -- in a hotel room is not a good advertisement from an establishment.
Oh gosh, that’s so interesting - my MIL drinks green tea, and I’ve had plenty of cups with her, but never with milk (or indeed cream)!
When I was at university I had a great tea-drinking friendship with a chap down the hall and we’d meet up in his room during breaks from essay-writing a couple of afternoons a week for a time-limited cuppa and a chat. He was a third-year, and I a first-year, and to me he was the HEIGHT of sophistication, because he had his own kettle in his room. No fridge, though - so he used powdered Coffeemate coffee creamer - in tea! It tasted extraordinary, but I soon got used to it.
I love dark chocolate, too - I buy the 85% variety, either Lindt or Green & Black’s. Happily (as a type 1 diabetic) there’s far less carbohydrate in that than in milk chocolate, which of course is mostly sugar.
I never knew the joys of tea until I spent a summer in London via university in 1986. I was addicted. Alas, a milk allergy followed and today tea is just not the same with almond milk. Blech. I found a wonderful caffeine free Japanese green tea.
BTW, there are some great documentaries about Hitchcock,.
Tea the British way - hurrah! I’m sorry that your milk allergy changed your tea-drinking habits, though - although that green tea sounds yummy!
I have to buy the tea online. I’ve never seen it in the store. enjoyingtea.com
Wow, thanks for the link! BEAUTIFUL!!! Dad used to bring back jasmine flower tea from the Far East - actually there’s still a jar of the tiny little balls in their kitchen. When you add boiling water they uncurl. Delicious, too.
Love that. My daughter once gave me tea buds that flowered in hot water, along with a clear glass mug. Beautiful and delish.
There’s nothing like a cup of tea to lift the soul, Rebecca. I wish the same could be said for the roads. Around here my teeth literally shake and my bones rattle as I make the treacherous journey to work and back daily. And that bat? 🦇 OMG! A friend of mine, many years ago, discovered one in her house and constantly wore a towel turban for fear of it getting stuck in her hair!
The roads are terrible, aren’t they?! I live on an unmade lane, and I’m used to all the potholes and the fact that any remaining tarmac on the surface is dissolving into tiny pieces, but when I drive out of the village it’s on ‘proper’ roads which are becoming a similar sorry state!
That’s the fear many people have with bats, isn’t it, that they’ll get stuck in your hair? I wonder why that is? Perhaps it happens, but I’m sure if I were a bat I’d give people’s heads a wide berth…
Cryptic crosswords are beyond me. This statement ‘‘worried’ is telling me to look for an anagram’ left me going Que??? And the batty situation was interesting. That’s a good-sized bat! I had a tiny microbat share my pillow with me once. Not sure which of us was more terrified. I was sound asleep and awoke to find this fluttering thing on my pillow. Queue heart attack!
BETH!!!!!!! 🏆
I love your bat story! Gosh, I don’t think I’d have liked having a bat on my pillow! We had one in our bedroom at home one summer evening - it had flown in and got caught up in a curtain. It flopped around for a bit and I managed to gently catch it in my hands. It flew off into the night and gosh, it felt awesome to have been in such close company with such a fascinating creature. 😊
Your trinity of tea drawing is the best! What a great poster, or t-shirt it would make!!! I love it and I also love an ellipse that might go rogue at any moment. Well done, RH! And that bat - it looks HUGE! Was it in your room or a common area? I don't think I could sleep at all with it flying about, or even if it was just thinking about flying . . . . Your campervan sounds lovely, too. P.S. The pothole flower pots are a great example of "use what you have". 😄
LOL - it was in our bedroom, and that video was shot from IN BED!!! We thought it was absolutely brilliant to have our very own bat - we still talk about it now! 🤣
The bat calmed down after a short while, and we didn’t see him again. It seemed very much ‘at home’ - I wonder if it had simply roosted in a quiet corner once the lights were off, or whether he went out of the window.
We horrified Jim’s clients by telling them all about it at breakfast next morning! 🤣
Love that! Maybe Mr. Bat went back to his house and told his family about you and your Jim. 😂
YES! ‘Hey guys, you’ll never GUESS what happened to me tonight! Two tall people MOVED INTO my roost - look, I took this video of them!’
🤣🤣🤣
Love your letters, Rebecca! And yes, there are SO many kinds of milk here! I guess that's so those of us who are "lactose intolerant" (I didn't know that was even a thing, until I developed it!) or "vegan" have plenty of choices. But, what confuses me, are the "nut milks" I mean, how does one even approach, say, an almond, to milk it?
Alfred Hitchcock used to have a home here in Santa Cruz, California. I also love his movies. After watching "Psycho", it took me years to feel safe in a shower...."The Birds" is also a great movie, based on a true story that took place here in Capitola, California, in the early 1960's.
LOL Sharon - you’ve given me a hilarious mental image of attempts at almond milking… 🤣
Ooooh, it’s so interesting that Hitchcock lived in your neighbourhood. I’m not sure I’ll ever psych myself up to watching Psycho, but I did see The Birds years ago - it really frightened me - and I really love birds!
Yes, "Psycho" is not for the faint of heart, that's for sure! lol
I’m going to need to remind myself that ‘it’s only chocolate sauce, it’s only chocolate sauce’ when I get to THAT scene……..
Ha ha!! That's the way to watch it, Rebecca!!
It is so funny to me how you and Terry can talk about all aspects of finding a good cup of tea, week by week, and it is so entertaining! And I don't even drink tea! As far as sketchy hotels go, you might scroll through this little story by J Curtis. He gives a description of a hotel room that will make you want a shower after reading it. In my low budget travels, I have never quite sunk to this level. Brilliant writer.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-146886020
Thanks, Sharron! And wow, thanks for the link to that story - it’s brilliant, AND has made me shudder all the way through to my core!
So you can always ask for milk for your tea, or half and half which comes in little plastic containers. Same for coffee. Waitresses are usually good at giving you those when asked. I always ask for honey as I don’t like sugar.
Alfred Hitchcock was the scary/suspense movie guy when I was a kid. I always loved Rear Window. The Birds was really scary, but it made me think about all the horrible things we do to animals without worrying about repercussions. Thank you as always!
And I could not have gotten “social” in a million years lol
That's great to know - thanks, Julie! I've just Googled 'half and half' - I think I'd thought it meant 'semi-skimmed', but no, it's literally half milk and half cream - yummy!
(Have also Googled semi-skimmed milk - apparently that's 2% milk over there.)
I haven't seen Rear Window, but it's on my list of things to watch. The BBC are running a lot of Hitchcocks at the moment - I'll keep my eyes peeled for that one. I'd like also to watch the 1998 version, which starred Christopher Reeve.
When my pa and I went to the USA, when I was 15, we went bearing comestibles for my aunt (his sister) and the Customs people confiscated the lot. I had a bottle of water confisctaed, and this was before the pandemic: back in 2006. Still, they let me take a bag of nuts and raisins through. The customs officer asked me why I had them and I replied that m,y wife was worried that I might starve over the last 12 hours despite being on a plane where they don't stop offering you food. That was true actually. Anyway, he didn't crack a smile but just grunted and let me though, with the aforesaid nuts and raisins. He was probably thinking "Eccentrentric Brits. Thank goodness we told them to take a hike back in 1776."
I didn't like that xword clue. I mean, full marks to BethT for almost solving it, but as I wrote to you in an email, and as I've expanded on in my reply, I don't think it's a proper clue. Great to try though: I find creating a decent clue pretty hard.
It's on my bucket list to one day attempt to send a haggis to the United States, Terry. 🤫
Beth T DID solve it, and she wins a gold star for absolutely nailing it.
The-alphabet = a line in the alphabet = QUEUE.
.............Okay, so the fact that I have done nothing in my clue to tell you to turn 'Q' into 'QUEUE' *might* be considered by some to be a sliiiiiiiiight oversight in my clue construction, but c'mon, Lord Tel, it's not MUCH of a jump, so the fact remains that I'M very clearly a genius and YOU are simply being obstructive. 😉
PS You were only 15 in 2006? 🤯
Beth T ALMOST nailed it, and well done to her for that, but she wasn't sure why, or at least not completely. Also, we Brits tend not to use the word 'line' meaning queue, plus it's not a line, it's a dash, which is a different thing altogether. Admit it, Becks, your so-called slight oversight meant that the clue was virtually unsolvable. I rest my case.
And yes, owing to an unfortunate omission of the word 'also' somewhere in my comment, I was indeed only 15 in 2006. I've led a hard life so look a lot older.
What shape is a dash, then, if it's not a line?
Ye Gods. I've just done the maths. I'm old enough to be your mother. 😳
Sigh. It is shaped like a line, but technically it's referred to as a dash, or a hypen, or an en dash or an em dash. OK, mum?
Next you’ll be telling me that an S-shape is no longer permitted to be referred to as a ‘squiggle’, nor an i to be called ‘a vertical line with a dot above it’. 🙄
An s shape can be referred to as LIKE a squiggle, and a squiggle can be referred to as LIKE an s, but an s is not a squiggle and a squiggle is not an s. I rest my case.