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I have re-entered this as a new tea; the current entry wouldn’t allow me to post to it. This falls in my non-scientific, loosey-goosey array of tea classifications as “tea party tea.” Good for recreational drinkers and non-teaists. Quite tasty; the strawberry is more “strawberry sundae” than actual berries themselves, but handled delicately (I need to back off the water temp next cup), something you could serve to your princess-in-training.

In other news, we are OK. Did you see the big red target in the center of the U.S. last night? Our area was the bulls-eye. No tornado damage in our little burg, but scary and significant about five miles up the road. We spent most of the evening pacing in front of our garage safe room, ready to duck and dash.

Once we did crash, we woke up to our little branch of Turkey Creek behaving more like Turkey Rapids. Our back yard is a mudslide, but on the bright side, no mowing this weekend!

Our community started taking action immediately: Hardware stores reopening late last night so folks could grab emergency supplies. Local independent roofer offering to tarp damaged homes for free today. Volunteer chainsaw crews ready to go at daybreak. I don’t like it that we are good at this, but it’s what our people do, and I am blessed to be among such kind and generous hearts here in flyover territory.

I like my morning tea with work boots on; this is more like a pair of walking shoes—-another review mentioned that it leans toward Ceylon and not Assam; I agree. Tolerates a long and sloppy steep, however; that’s always a plus.

Actually, forget the work boots. So much rain in Missouri, we need hip waders.

Tulsi is my go-to when I need a de-stress brew; but I generally steep loose leaves. This is a nice portable version, and the lemon/ginger is a perfect complement to tulsi’s natural lemony taste—more of that in this little bag than the tulsi flavor itself. Good for what ails ya.

Confounded blood pressure. Had to do an unwelcome run to urgent care for a nasty ear infection last week and got spoken to very crisply about the need for follow up with my regular doc. (Yes, I listened. Yes, I have an appointment scheduled.)

In the meantime, I understand that hibiscus is a good natural catalyst for BP reduction. That’d be great, if I liked hibiscus. So if I’m going to imbibe it, I’ll have to disguise it.

I tried a cup of this fruity stuff last night—another Tuesday Morning impulse grab—and it wasn’t bad. More raspberry than strawberry, still more tart than I prefer, but not so much that it makes your eyebrows sweat. It’s finally warming up to ice tea weather—I have learned that hibiscus is a little mellower when you cold steep it, so we may give that a go as well.

Belated and unexpected birthday surprise from a dear friend! (We used to honor the “two weeks either way and it still counts” rule; now it’s been extended to six months either way. Sometimes Christmas packages get mailed in September.)

Physical properties: Normally, I steep my go-to-work tea in a Tervis tumbler, and leave the leaves at home. But this ToasTEA thing is the bees’ knees, in that it has a steeping basket that screws into the lid. Since the tumbler is tall, you aren’t stewing your brew, and there’s a sipping filter that keeps you from swallowing leaves and allows you to re-steep at will. Add new hot water, flip it upside down, and there you go.

Thermal properties: I’ve been sipping at mine for an hour and a half, and it’s still fresh-cup warm.

Visibility properties: The flippy push-button lid, helpful for maintaining the thermal properties described above, gets in the way a bit when I’m driving. Guess I’ll have to take the route that has more stoplights.

Yeah, I’m a sucker for clearance sales—but this was $1.75 at our Natural Grocers. You would’ve bought it, too!

And I’m glad I did … the whole bundle of ingredients together make a wonderful, soft, mellow, peachy cup. It leads with the peach and rooibos, nothing gingery or “pie-y” about it. Just good ripe fruit.

Isn’t it funny that maple is generally considered to be a fall flavor, but the sap actually starts running in the early spring? Thus, I was actually a little seasonally late trying this one.

Even with sloppy steeping and work water, this was very good. I oversteeped, so the black base was a little stiffer than I intended, but the maple is maple-y without being cloyingly sweet. Looking forward to a better-supervised rerun!