How I started drinking tea..

Let's start from the beginning. The usual tehs and teh-os from coffee shops don't count :p

Well, I will start from ice lemon teas. I used to think it tastes weird. That was way back when I was in secondary 1. But everyone was drinking it, so i thought I'd try it. I didn't like it at first, it was kinda bitter. But for some reason I grew to like it, and then it sorta became a staple. Subsequently I felt I was drinking too much sugar at the same time, and so I looked for an alternative.

Pokka's green tea became an alternative then, and it was very refreshing. I loved it, other brands were good too. But again, SUGAR. I'm not sure why, but when i started drinking green tea I became quite sensitive to sugar. Sensitive not in the sense that I would break out in a rash or whatever, but in the sense that it started to taste tooooo sweet.



Then I tried dilmah's tea bags, plain. Initially I was like urrghhh - with the face and all - but I started to appreciate it, and its taste. After a while I could taste the subtle taste of jasmine in the tea and it was really nice.

Then I was introduced to the loose leaf variety and I loved that one as you could vary the taste of the tea.

So, initially I drank tea for no real reason, subsequently I drank tea as it was a healthy and yummy beverage, and now I just drink tea because I do.

Oh, I just drank jasmine tea cos I needed to poop oops hehehehe yes I ate too much and tea always helps me in that area :p

Peppermint Tea

I hven't been updating much as I've been really busy, but I do drink tea everyday still :D I can do without blogging, but not without tea hee! Today I just wanted to try something new, so chose Lipton's Peppermint Herbal tea. I like Lipton's packaging as it is small, so it doesn't cost too much to just try although I haven't tasted tea that tastes bad yet. Here's what it looks like..

Yup, it's like a neat little box that I can bring to work or something. But I haven't opened it, maybe later. Now I am drinking Lipton's Jasmine tea. Actually my mum bought it on a whim, but she doesn't actually drink tea. She just likes to buy stuff and she thought she would drink it but she didn't. So I told her don't waste it, pass to me. For a teabag it's not too bad, But I still prefer the loose leaf kind.

Anyway here's some info I found about peppermint, taken from http://www.womens-health-symmetry.com/peppermint.html :

Benefits of Peppermint

Peppermint is one of the oldest and best-tasting home remedies for digestive support.

Studies show that peppermint lessens the amount of time food spends in the stomach by stimulating the gastric lining.

Peppermint also relaxes the stomach muscles and promotes burping.

Peppermint is used for indigestion and distress of the GI tract.

Migraine headaches are often relieved when peppermint oil is rubbed on the temples.

The herb peppermint has a calming effect on the body and can help soothe a nagging cough and allergies.

Tea or not?

Let me just say that tea never fails to make me feel better, whether mentally or physically. We should all drink tea. Plain. Not with sugar or milk(unless it is English Breakfast), just plain. ahhh, I can feel my friends cringe when I tell them this and they all think I am mad. But hey, I am just educating you. And I find that I can taste and appreciate tea better without the 'addons'. Of course, it is still a personal preference, so fellow tea drinkers who still like their milk and sugar, please do not get offended, as long as you love tea(Not just bubble tea or tea lattes), then you have my respect!

And there are some who think that all tea have caffeine. I am sorry to say that the word tea is overused, or misused. For example, my Rosehips and Hibiscus tea is caffeine free. Yup, no caffeine. It is not really a tea in the usual sense of the word. Real tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant. Anything else, is not really tea. It's a different kind of animal altogether. Even my bitter gourd 'tea' is not really a tea. Neither is the wild blue berries tea I bought for my bf.

So yes, I hope you are enlightened, all of you who are uneducated in the ways of TEA :p

White tea

I decided to drink my white tea and take a few pics while I'm at it :D So here goes.

This is the white tea I bought the other time and the paper bag it came in.


Close up of the label. It says Yinzhen Baihao I think.

How it looks before pouring hot water in

And here's after pouring water in
hehe okie, now I can drink my tea! Compared to other Chinese teas, the white tea has got less caffeine, so for those of you who are wary of tea because of the levels of caffeine, you can try this instead. It has a slightly milky feeling kind of taste, and perhaps not as fragrant as say jasmine or oolong tea, but it is still very good and refreshing. First time I drank it I thought it tasted weird, but subsequently, I love it!

Ahmad tea

Was hanging around the tea section in cold storage and saw this brand of tea, Ahmad Tea - London-. Frankly speaking, when I hear ahmad, I really don't think of London. But I am not sure what's up there, went to the website and they didn't actually say how the name Ahmad came about.

Anyways, I went to visit the website cos I was sooooo tempted to buy the set of 4 types of tea... It had Darjeeling tea(I only found out what it is recently), English breakfast tea, jasmine tea and earl grey tea. But well, I had no cash on me, and my parents were goodness knows where. So I contented myself by looking at all the tea that was on the shelf, and the variety is not great, but better than the usual supermarts. And the Ahmad tea caught my eye. Here's how it looks like:


Pretty right? I love it! It looks better if you see it for real, cos it has very lovely images on its box. I am so going to get it the next time I go to a cold storage. Anyway the website is http://www.ahmadtea.com

And yes, I have been seeing this Darjeeling tea around, really pretty name but I never knew what it was, so finally found it, it is tea that is grown thousands of feet above sea level at the foot of the himalayan hills. Darjeeling is somewhere in India. Correct me if I am wrong please.

Thé Blanc

The past few days seem to have drained me out, and tomorrow I am still covering for someone at work.. oh well. I did manage to have my tea still :) But I'm still worried about the water at work. sigh. Anyhow, let's talk about something nicer, like the tea I am drinking now! I am drinking white tea from Lipton. It's loose leaves in a triangle teabag. It has a slightly peachy taste, I think they added some peach stuff to it. It's kinda sweet, one of the reasons why I really like it, yet no sugar added.

So there it is, my cup of tea :D Behind it you can see my messy table :p Complete with my blue/black new balance arm wallet which I fell in love with at first sight. And at the other side, my adidas black wrist wallet which I really like too, but when I run with it, it gets kind of irritating, so I prefer my arm wallet :)


Ok, here's a closeup of the label and tea bag, I just love their packaging! As with most teas, the packaging is usually very pretty and I have to resist from buying everything on the shelf :p But I must say, Marks and Spencer's tea packaging... sucks :p It just looks so boring, no wonder they are not making money.. I do love their cookies though hahaha

Twinings speciality tea

Oh no, I just saw the new range of Twinings tea and I can't resist getting it!!! Only that I don't think its sold in Singapore... :( But I can still ogle at the pretty packaging right? Perhaps I will go to cold storage to check it out later... Where can I get such funky teas??

I know that to get all sorts of chinese tea I can go to the chinese tea houses.. but other weird kinds of teas? bb's dad brought back some real African rooibos tea for me before, I will talk about it another time :D Perhaps can get bb to get some Indian tea if he goes over !

(Speciality teas from Twinings: http://www.twinings.co.uk/SpecialityTea/)