Tea Time

This afternoon the inevitable happened: Raffaele asked me to cut his hair. About 3 years ago he got sick and tired of his barber giving totally different haircuts than what he was asking for, and he convinced me to do it for him. Since then I've become the whole family's hair stylist, including for myself, which is a pretty good explanation why my hair's always a big mess. I'm always happy to save the money and it's a great satisfaction when it turns out well, or even when we get complimented on our hair, but it always stresses me out. So today, before the big event, I prepared myself a nice ginger and tangerine herbal blend.

I really love tea and blends, even if I'm not English and I only last month saw a tea cozy in use for the first time (which our English hosts were aghast to hear). Two friends of mine introduced me on two different occasions the joys of Rishi Tea, a fair-trade company selling tons of teas, herbal blends and chais, many of which are organic. Tons and tons! They are super yummy and I suggest that anyone who even slightly appreciates a good tea go immediately and order some. They also sell very cool teapots and cups. A friend gave us two jade-colored porcellain cups in three pieces: the cup, the part with a bunch of holes to brew the tea, and the cover. This way you put the loose tea in, brew, and take out the holey part, thereby straining and leaving the leaves inside to use another time (Rishi claims their teas can be brewed three times, but I think that's a bit much. The third time is a bit weak for my liking). A good hot tea in one of these cups never fails to put me in a good mood!