After getting food and tea, I walked home. I took a few unusual turns, finally seeing how big the little park by the bridge is. One side was quite a long walk, but the side of the bridge I was on was short. I stopped to take some pictures of flowering trees. This is the first kind to bloom. Later the pink ones around my apartment will outshine these.
It was a good day to be out and walking. Not too hot, and not cold. Nice and sunny, but late enough in the day to not burn me.
One of these building is the new student apartments opening later. The flowering trees in tin cans are by the Northside Grill, which offers huge servings of homemade pancakes.
I guess I should include my picture of my tea (also on Instagram) .
This is South Korea Seogwang Sencha from Teahaus. Any K-pop fan would obviously pick the only tea from South Korea, even if it is premium.
The teas I bought were: Japan Tamaryokucha (from clearance), and China Golden Yunnan. The first is another premium green tea, and the second is a breakfast tea. Only now I want a Tea Maker, or temperature adjustable water boiler, so I do not over brew the premium green tea.
Based on the Tea guides on The Art of Green Tea… which is a channel I found many years ago, with green tea you want to boil the water, then let the water cool. Even if you have a temperature adjustable water dispenser, first bring the water to a boiling temperature, then turn it down to a cooler temperature. This does something with the oxygen in the water.
If you brew Green Tea in Boiling hot water, the leaves will burn. That is why, unlike black tea, the temperature is so important with brewing Green tea.
A lot of the cheaper tea makers are designed for only Black Tea. With Black Tea you want Boiling water, so it is easy to get the right temperature. If the water is boiling, it is ready.
At the price of good Tea makers, it is better to just practice timing how long to let the boiled water cool. I doubt my roommate would like a hot water dispenser on the counter. Maybe investing in a thermometer would be a wiser move.
Checked we still have the espresso thermometer from before my roommate put away the espresso machine (for health reasons). It has the correct range of temperatures.
I never much used the home espresso machine, but used the milk frothier for making Matcha Lattes with vanilla syrup. After the machine was gone, I bought a handheld milk frothier, that is really just a little tool that spins quickly.
I used to have a passion for Matcha, hence finding The Art of Green Tea channel over 6 years ago. It was only recently that I made the jump over to Black Tea, starting with Chai.
There is a coffee shop in town that I call ERC. Espresso Royale Cafe. Now knowing just as Espresso Royale. It makes Chai from loose leaf tea. This is wonderful, but when you randomly go on diets, you discover that making Chai with less honey in it at home is very cost effective (in both dollars and calories). I still sometimes get the Chai at ERC, but now I drink more homemade Iced Tea. (I am in full control of Sugar amounts then.)
Have I impressed you with how long I can talk about tea? This actually, this is just the beginning.
Categories: Beginnings
Intuitive Voyage 
I have a considerable amount of tea. I love bold chai tea and Irish breakfast tea. Matcha is something I have not had access too, but I would like to try. I have several bags of specially blended loose leaf tea from a small busines that is no longer in opperation. I have had them for 3 or 4 years (which I read means they just won’t be so potent), but have not drank much from them because all my steepers seemed lousy for keeping all the leaves in. I came up with a method of resting a coffee filter with the tea on top of the water. It worked pretty well if I was careful but is a little more of a hassle since it can also lead to more tea leaves or herbs in the water. Thanks for teaching me something new about green tea. I admit I don’t boil water. Would need to get a kettle for that. I just use hot water from a kuerig or the microwave. On another topic, I believe some of those trees are Bradford Pears. We have them in our yard and it urks me that they don’t grow fruit given their name. They are quite pretty when bloomed, but the blooms last a couple of weeks at most out of the year.
The Bradford Pears are among the first flowering trees here. Soon there will be more flowering trees around for pictures.
I had to develop a taste for tea (it being the cheapest drink in most coffee shops, and me at the time being a poor student). Also, after I was put on a medication that amplifies the effects of caffeine, I had to stop drink as much coffee.
I can feel the difference in kind of caffeine now, and prefer the peaceful energy of tea to the kitty energy of coffee.
I believe our Bradford pears bloomed in about mid March this year. I am a fan of coffee. I don’t drink mass quantities of it and get all hyped up, but a good cup of coffee is like a sigh of relief.