Tea...For Just One

Lately I have been freezing. The boys are peeling off clothing until they're sitting there in their underwear while I throw on layer after layer and huddle under multiple blankets. They're opening their windows and I'm sleeping with socks on.

A few weeks ago, I was out for dinner with a very thoughtful friend and she ordered tea so I could wrap my hands around a warm cup. I have always disliked warm beverages (except occasionally hot chocolate but only if there's Bailey's in it). But I tried a sip of tea and it wasn't as horrible as every other tea I had ever tried so I thought perhaps there might possibly be a tea out there that I could enjoy.

Yesterday I went to a local tea place and told the girl behind the counter what I was looking for. I said: "I'm looking for a tea with a woody flavour, like how you think a tree might taste, but not a pine tree cause that's gross." And I said: "You know how when you're eating a bag of sunflower seeds and there's always that one seed that tastes different than the rest but it's really, really yummy? I want it to taste like that." She just looked confused and scared.

After pulling about 20 canisters down off the wall of tea, I managed to pick four that smelled good. And I tried them all last night and this morning. I'm pretty serious about finding a tea. Every couple of years, I think I should try it. I'll think that raspberry tea should be good because it has raspberries in it. Then I'll realize, as I'm discreetly spitting it back into the cup, that raspberry tea in no way resembles raspberries.

These are the four I tried yesterday:

1. Fantasy Island - a black tea with coconut and raspberries. It wasn't awful but not exactly the flavour I'm looking for.

2. Glitter & Gold - Chinese black tea, sugar crystals, gold sugar balls (so it looks cool), vanilla, orange peel, and cloves. Again, not horrible, but I'm thinking the black tea part is the part I'm not responding too. Cause how do you dislike a tea that has little gold balls in it?

3. Checkmate - It's a white tea. But it also is a black tea. And it has coconut and Roman chamomile (I have no idea what that means). It's ok, but still...say it with me...not the flavour I'm looking for.

4. Movie Night - I wanted to love this one. It's a green tea with apple and popcorn. Popcorn in the tea leaves! I'm drinking it right now actually. And I've had about half a cup which is more than any of the others I tried. But it's still not perfect.

I told my mom about my search for tea and she sent over three other kinds to try. And I'm going to another friend's house this morning and she's got an assortment she thinks I should try. How much tea is too much to drink in one day? Is more than eight sips too many?

Anyway, let me know if you have any suggestions.

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