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So my birthday was on Sunday and it was a pretty shit day thanks to my family. Luckily though, I always have my friends, both my real life ones and those I have made here on steepster. Seeing as my family neglected to even get me a single birthday card, it was especially nice when a lovely blue and white box arrived Monday evening from my amazing tea twin, Roswell Strange!! She sent me a tea book, lots of tea samples, a giant bag of one of my favorite rooibos blends, and an amazing pickle birthday card that sounded oddly like a cross between your typical old jewish man and my own dad. It really put a smile on my face so thank you so much Roswell!!!

Anyways, after the events of my birthday, my family decided that they just weren’t going to talk to me for a couple of days which meant I tended to stay in my room, cut off from my tea and my kettle :(. Today they started talking to me again and though it isn’t exactly a warm welcome, I can at least feel comfortable enough to make myself some tea so that’s what I did.

I decided to go for a matcha because I haven’t had one in a while and I thought it might be fun to dump it into my milk frother and see what happened. I wanted a warm drink though so I tried to choose a dessert flavor for an after-dinner treat but I also aimed for something that wouldn’t be weird hot. This seemed like it should fit the bill so I pulled it out of my birthday box, courtesy of Roswell Strange, and whipped it up (literally I guess as that’s what the frother does :P).

Unfortunately, this matcha + warm, frothy skim milk has led to a drink that is much, much more pie than berry and not in a good way. It has almost taken on a yeasty/buttery type flavor like undercooked pie crust. I can smell the berries but I’m not getting much of them flavorwise, though every now and then I get a dose of cinnamon which I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. Anyways, as a hot cup, this is not for me but heres hoping that the berry comes out more in a cold brew.

In other news, one good thing that happened Sunday is I just happened to break my kindle while my dad called to wish me a Happy Birthday. Granted, the breaking my kindle part sucked as I have basically been reading a book a day for the past two weeks (though it still functions, just now I have a sad button that makes it a little troublesome to browse/buy books) but since it happened while I was talking to my dad, he offered to buy me a new one for my birthday. So now I am in research mode trying to decide if I want the Kindle Voyage or the Kindle Paperwhite. If anyone has an opinion, I’d love to hear it!