Day 61: Celestial Seasonings Green Tea Decaf (with White Tea)

This is a tea I picked up in the States.  I have perfected the art of the self-decaffeinated green tea, but it doesn't always work. Sometimes I leave the teabag in too long, despite my best efforts, and lie awake at night.  Other times I don't leave it in long enough, and it's like drinking lightly coloured hot water.  I thought this might be the answer.

I do like this tea, as an alternative and something to drink late at night.  It's no loose-leaf, certainly, but it has a decent green flavour without being too overwhelming, although I can't really have more than one cup at a time.  There's no lovely mango or peach or cranberry flavouring to help it along, so it's a bit plain.  The white tea (which, according to the box, has been added for a 'smoother taste') definitely does help things along.  I do like the combination, and am now thinking about how I could do a little combo of my own with my loose-leaf teas!

Another successful walk/run this morning - nothing exceptional to say here except that I am definitely back in the pattern, and enjoying it.  And the weather right now is so perfect I couldn't be happier.  Sunshine, but not too warm; a breeze, but not a wind; a few clouds, but nothing cold.  I think what's amazing in the UK is that there is such a tendency to give up hope.  "Lovely day," I'll say to someone, and inevitably the response will be, "Yes, it's nice finally" or "It's only meant to last till tomorrow" or something like that.  I say, enjoy it while you have it!  I even went to the lengths of insisting on being cheerful while waiting in the queue at the post office today, and I think I might be in danger of losing my British citizenship over it.

Walk on!

Day 60: Green Tea With Mango (Loose Leaf)

Today I finally got back into my good pattern of getting up to a cup of green tea, doing my morning pages, going for a walk, and then starting my day.  It's amazing how long it took me to get back into it, but as I was going (and being tempted to berate myself and beat myself up for how I'd fallen off the regular-pattern-wagon), I realised that that's just a part of exercise. And discipline. And life. If you have a period of time where you've done really, really well - getting up early every day, eating healthy, walking or running, being disciplined with emails, achieving all kinds of things - there is always, always going to be a period where you just can't do it anymore.

And instead of attacking myself for what I haven't done, I'm seriously considering just letting that be part of the process.  Obviously lying around watching films all day is not something you want to just let happen whenever, but sometimes you get sick. Or are jet lagged. Or have put out 110% for the last six months and just can't do it anymore.  And falling back is part of the process.  It means you've been doing everything right.  It means you need a rest (and perhaps have been pushing too hard).  And it means you're human.

At the end of the day, I'm always going to get back on the wagon and go forward. I'm never going to just lie around being useless, because I hate that.  And this week I've already started to see increased enthusiasm and energy - and it could just be that all this renewal came from me being down for a little while.  Regardless, I'm back in the pattern.  And all is good.

Today's tea was Green Tea with Mango - but the loose leaf version that I got from Tea's Me Cafe.  Gosh, this tea is good. If I had to pick one tea as a favourite from the entire 60 days so far, it really might be this one.  (Okay, the Angels' Kiss is a very close second.)  It's light, refreshing, fruity but not overwhelmingly so, has just the right amount of green tea for flavour but not for bitterness, has a pale yellow colour and fresh fruity flavour that means I can drink cup after cup without any bad effects other than an inability to fall asleep at night! :)


I've also discovered that I can use my cafetiere (which I use for ground coffee) with my loose leaf tea as an infuser alternative.  I'm pretty impressed with myself.  I don't have a tea infuser or infused teapot or any of those fun things (hint, hint, anyone who's thinking of sending a gift for any reason), and I have tried a variety of options before I hit on this cafetiere idea. I tried putting the tea leaves in a teapot, and then straining them out as I poured.  It worked okay, but made a big mess.  I have a tea-spoon with holes that works well for a cup of tea, but not so much for a whole pot.  So here then is my answer.  I'm still learning how much tea to use (I always put in too much), and the lesson is: use very little!

Walk/run length: 40 minutes

Day 59: Rest

Today, I rested.

Day 58: Gojiberry Green Tea

Today was another one of my loose-leaf extravaganzas! To be honest, I have no idea what gojiberries are, and bought the tea simply because at the shop (Teas Me!)they opened up a box of it and it was so pretty, with blue flower petals and red dried berries and green tea leaves, and it smelled heavenly.  I've had it a few times now, and it's one of the strangest green teas that I have.  First, it actually smells better than it tastes.  I like the taste pretty well, but the smell is so exotic and powerful, whereas once it's steeped it's still a very light green tea.  Secondly, it tastes better with the first cup than with the second or third - whereas some green teas are much more powerful the second or third steeping.

I wasn't even sure if a gojiberry was a real berry, but it appears to be.  This tea has blueberry and pomegranate flavours, with blue cornflowers for colour and even some lemongrass in the tea!  Makes for an intense taste that you can have over and over again from just a few teaspoons of dried tea.  It makes me wish I could drink green tea late at night, but even though green tea is lighter in caffeine, it's still there - and my little trick of decaffeinating the teabag doesn't work so well with loose leaf tea!

My walk today was to visit one of the older housebound ladies, and then to the grocery store and home.  I must still be getting over my exhaustion because that about did me in!

Time for another cup of tea and then bed!

Walk length: 15 minutes

Catching Up

I took almost a week off from my blog up until today. Put simply, I was exhausted. A lot of traveling and a good bit of work and photography and visiting and family and walking and running and shopping and hundreds of other things meant that I was just worn out from all the little daily things that I'd been doing so well.

So, I just stopped everything for a little while. It's good to do that. Whilst in one way it's great to be such an achiever, and successful, and firing ahead at all pistons every day, it always catches up to you.  And when it does, just lie down and rest until you're ready to get back up again.  It's a good thing. 

Day 57: Organic White Tea (Pai Mu Tan)

Today was a pre-wedding shoot with Robert and Lorna in Belfast.  It's only a few days since I arrived back in Scotland from the States, but as I said to a friend later that day, flying from Edinburgh to Belfast is like taking public transport.  I had no luggage with me, so it was a matter of dandering through the airport, editing a few photos on my laptop while I waited for the flight to board, and then a 20 minute flight and I was there.

We had an amazing day, and a very full one. We started off with breakfast at a little place called The Yellow Door (interestingly enough on our way there I spotted the Green Door and the Amber Window and several other similar restaurants - a popular notion!), and of course I asked for tea.  They brought out an entire box of teas for me to choose from, and I hesitated for quite some time before finally deciding on an organic white.

I don't think I've had a 'plain' white tea yet, and this one was described as a white peony tea, which sounded perfect to me.  And it was.  I really, really love white teas.  And on a day when I'm doing a pre-wedding shoot, and looking at wedding venues and sprinkling rose petals and taking photos of beautiful engagement rings, a white tea is just right.  I think if I got married I would love to have an entire tea bar of white teas - there are so many and they have such incredibly beautiful names!  And anything white goes well with a wedding :)

So we went to the venue where Robert and Lorna are getting married (the Dunadry - a gorgeous place!), where they spent ages going over the tiniest of details with their wedding coordinator.  Meanwhile I wandered the grounds and found beauty everywhere.  And then it was on to Dunluce Castle, and White Rocks beach for some fun shots, and after a quick dinner I was off on the flight again (through a completely empty security - nine security guards and one little me!) and home before 10!  An amazing day, and a lovely tea to start it off with.

Walk length: All over! Hard to say.

Day 56: Pear Helene Green Tea (loose leaf)

Well, I need to admit it.  I'm a loose-leaf-tea snob now.  Having spent a few weeks in the States trying loads of different tea cafes, loose leaf teas, teabag-teas, and just about everything there is, and then coming home with more packets of loose leaf teas than I should probably admit to, I'm really finding it difficult to simply toss a teabag into a cup of hot water and drink it.  The intense flavours, the sweetness, the fresh flavour of loose leaf tea of any kind has spoiled me rotten for any other kind of tea - at least for a little while.

Today's tea was my 'bonus' tea that I got because I bought so many at Souvia (the day I tried the Angels' Kiss green tea with Betty).  It's called Pear Helene, and has little pieces of dried candied pear pieces in with the green tea leaves.  It also includes marigold flowers, the packet says, and originated in Germany. There's an interesting aspect I haven't looked into yet - the origination of all the different teas. I never really had a burning desire to go to China, but I definitely do now. I'd love to go somewhere to see the tea plants and the drying leaves and the whole process from beginning to end!  This Pear Helene tea is another perfect example of an excellent fruity green tea - light, so light that there seems to be very little flavour, but like walking through flowers and yet not overwhelmed.

I have to confess I can't even remember what my walk was like this day.  I'm writing this blog post many days after the fact, so my best guess is that I walked down to my local grocery store and stocked up on supplies!



Walk length: 15 minutes