(Once again, I have no camera while Alex is in China, so you'll be getting Internet photos on my blog for a while.)
I served my mission in the Czech Republic, which is where I really became a tea drinker. In a country where they serve you a cup of tea as soon as you enter the door, no matter if they know you or not, you very quickly learn which teas are against the Word of Wisdom (a sort of code of health required in the LDS faith) and which teas are fantastic! A good rule of thumb is that "colored" teas (black, white, green, etc.) are against the W of W, and the fruit and herbals are just fine.
Having said that, not all fruit and herbal teas are made the same. For instance, Celestial Seasonings (which is typically the only brand available in US grocery stores) is really not very good stuff. I'll grant their Peppermint is not bad; but then again, you really can't mess up mint. The other flavors that I've tried are really not that pleasant to choke down.
The cup of tea I have in front of me at this moment, however, is something that most Americans, unfortunately, have never experienced. It's a brand I discovered in Liberec, Czech Republic; is actually an English company; and I have to special order it on the Internet (or visit a tea shop in Europe) to even find it. The London Fruit & Herb Company, by far, makes the best fruit teas I've ever tasted; some of my favorite flavors being Strawberries & Vanilla, Blueberry Bliss, Peach Paradise, and the flavor I'm enjoying at this very moment, Raspberry Rendezvous. Mmmmmm
Drop on by sometime and share a cup with me! It's a delicious way to cut the chill, and, believe me, I'm very well stocked. I think I've got a full box of just about every flavor they make. (There's no shipping charge if you order bulk enough.) Watch out though. You just may find yourself shopping on the Internet for tea, of all things.
And now my cup is empty, so I'm off to bed.
3 comments:
Hey! It's nice to meet a fellow tea drinker! I have lots of friends that think "no tea is good tea" but since joining the church, I really miss that 'warm drink' in the mornings or on rainy afternoons.
Where do you order such delicious looking teas? The only ones I can take are peppermint (cuz like you said, it's hard to mess up) and cinnamon. The rest are sooo gross!
Oh, and recently all the rasberry teas I've looked at have black tea as the base and then add the rasberry leaves. Dang it!!
Glad to see that Alex is having a good time in China.
Yeah, you have to be careful of fruit FLAVORED black teas; still bad. They're not the same as true fruit teas.
The internet company I ordered mine from is Mark T. Wendell Tea company. He's a distributor of lots of kinds of teas including fruit and herb teas. He sells the London Fruit & Herb that I just love, and another brand, Heath and Heather, that from what I've sampled seems to be just as good, in the "Imported Packaged Teas" section.
He calls his own fruit and herb teas "tisanes" I guess because they are not technically "teas" since they have no tea leaves in them. I've also heard them called fruit tinctures (or something like that.) I wasn't too impressed with his tisanes, but you can judge for yourself if you like. You can't go wrong with the imported ones though.
Or you can just google London Fruit & Herb Company to try to find a better deal if you like.
Happy shopping!
David also learned to love herbal tea on his mission in Ukraine. He has been working for years to get me to like them, but to no avail. Finally, this past year I found i could tolerate mint tea. Thus, after reading your high praise for London Fruit & herb, we bought some. It just came and ... WOW! The fruit ones actually have a great flavor! Many thanks for the good advice! - Heather
Post a Comment