Quotidian

[redbird]

Or, as someone else puts it, 5 random things make up an entry:

• Mr. Twinings, or his heirs and assigns, no longer love me. They have discontinued the blend of tea that has been my default tea-in-bags (for offices and some sorts of travel), Ceylon Breakfast. There's a replacement, called just Ceylon, which will do, I think, but I'm considering just buying more of my favorite loose Assam and some of those fill-it-yourself tea pouches. (Washing and drying tea balls at work has, in general, proven to be a nuisance, doubly so because I need to microwave the water for 30 seconds to get it hot enough.)


• Black Labs are heavy: I spent the ride in this morning with a slightly fidgety guide dog mostly lying on my foot, in between getting up partway and sniffing at another stranger's pants leg. The person he was with tugged him back into place, but didn't speak to the dog (or to the man, but she of course couldn't see what he was doing, only feel him move away slightly). That dog may need more exercise, or a refresher training course.


• I'm in the middle of multiple books again, in this case one novel and one short story. Both are recent purchases; I've also got two not-yet-started library books. (I'm borrowing a lot of mysteries at the moment, in part because I rarely want to reread those.)


• Somewhere along the line, equinox=spring stopped seeming plausible: it's been spring here for a few days, in the places where some of my friends live for weeks, and isn't yet where some of the others live. Nonetheless, it seems relevant that the days in this hemisphere are now longer than the nights.


• There was email at work this morning, to all staff, about their 2006 bonuses, stating that everyone would be getting the details from their supervisors in letters today, and the money by direct deposit tomorrow. Oh, and free pizza for all, as lunch today, with no speeches. Temps, even those who've been there longer that I have, don't get annual bonuses, but we did get pizza. It seems a shame that the person who's been complaining to me that she's not paid enough to eat wasn't there today.

Comments

I don't have a BSG userpic.

[elynne.livejournal.com]

I misread "Ceylon Breakfast" as "Cylon Breakfast". I now want somebody to make Cylon Breakfast Blends for each of the models; Number Six would be, perhaps, a lemon chamomile...

Re: I don't have a BSG userpic.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

That is a weird but intriguing idea.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Why are electric kettles not ubiquitous in the USA?

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Most public places that would put an electric kettle have a coffee maker and/or a microwave instead. Most private places that would have an electric kettle have a stove with a real kettle instead. If Vicki wants to stand on a chair and get it down from the high cabinet, and bring it home on the bus, she's welcome to my electric kettle. I'm not using it. (Obviously.)

If Twinings no longer makes acceptable Ceylon Breakfast teabags, would the Republic of Tea be a reasonable alternative? They're a bit pricey, and some of their flavored teas are too weird for my taste, but they seem competent with basic blends (they make the orange-hibiscus tisane you like.) I like the fill-it-yourself teabags for making pots of tea at home, but they're inconvenient for making cups of tea anywhere else because of the difficulty of closing the bags. There's a shop in Central Square, where I really should be going tomorrow because they have an herbal remedy for motion sickness I'm supposed to pick up...they have a lot of Republic of Tea varieties, and I can look for Ceylon Breakfast in teabags for you.

[redbird]

It might be worth a try; I don't know how much variation there is in those named blends.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Tons.

Try Jacksons of Piccadilly, if you can get it. You like their Irish Breakfast, you might well like their Ceylon one.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Most of my workplaces have all three. I don't usually see people boiling water in the microwave at work.

Actually, now that I think about it, the one building may not have a kettle any more; maybe people use the hot-water outlet on the coffee maker which I haven't measured because I don't make tea there. I'll look.

[redbird]

At a guess, because those of us who appreciate how tea should be made are happy to put non-electric kettles on gas or electric stovetops. (I almost never use all four stove burners simultaneously, and live in a place old enough that I'm running short on electrical outlets more often than stove burners.)

In a country where people are willing to make tea with water from a dispenser that says its at 182°F (not quite 85 C, 85 being the temperature a number of people recommend for green tea, and not hot enough for black), I don't think it's a hardware problem. It's a reeducation problem.

[jenett]

I have been very pleased with the T-Sac brand fillable bags - no metal in them anywhere, they're biodegradable, and there's no added papery flavor to the tea. They're 100 for about $5, give or take slightly.

They also come in 4 sizes: size 1 is for a cup, but I use them in my 16 ounce mug, and I've found I prefer using the size 2 bags: they give my tea more room to expand happily.

The size 1s are available from a bunch of places online. The bigger ones aren't as easy to find, but I got mine locally from the Tea Source (who also have an online store: http://teasource.com. I highly recommend both their Red Berries and Lavender Berry tisanes, for those inclined.)

[frandowdsofa.livejournal.com]

We got quite annoyed at Twinings a while ago when they stopped making Lemon Tea, and tried telling us that their new Lady Grey was a better product. It may be, if you like bergamot in your lemony tea, but John doesn't. We buy the own blend lemon from our local tea-merchants, Pollards, instead.

Whenever we travel abroad, the first thing we do is buy a cheap travelling electric kettle that fits the local electricity supply, and set it up in our hotel room. Even hotels in Britain sometimes bring you warm water and a teabag on the side, and last time John was in London they were making tea in cafetieres at breakfast. Bah.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I hate bergamot. People keep trying to tell me it's good, and maybe it is for them.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this would make a difference from the tea ball, but I have a tea ball spoon (http://www.paulawalla.com/detail.php?offer_id=US0015&name=Snap%20Mesh%20Tea%20Ball%20Spoon) that I use at cons, usually. Here at home I just microwave iced tea.