mumbai mocha

Check out this short write-up from Vogue India about the first Starbucks in India now open in Mumbai.  Featuring American waiters and American "super-size" portions along with the usual Starbucks offerings -- and just like the American Starbucks phenomenon, more of the Seattle-based coffee (and tea and so on) spots are scheduled to open in Mumbai within the week.  They do tend to multiply like caffeinated rabbits!  

the (be)witching hour

I really love epicurious.com and Douglas Little's suggestions for a more sophisticated (sorry, kids) Halloween party, featuring an upscale Witches' Sabbath theme for the evening.  Click here for details, and while the theme is indeed witchery, perhaps a bottle or two of Vampire Wine can be served?  And if you're at such a party drinking coffee in the wee hours to sober up before heading home and cream curdles in your cup, there may be a real warlock among the guests.  Or the cream just might be past its prime but it seems much more interesting to have a Halloween warlock around.

(Pictured:  The Black Cat -- Gino Severini, 1911, Wikimedia Commons)

cake and tea and withnail

This is one of my favorite movies ever but I'm not sure that the joy of tea was fully appreciated by Mr. Withnail and Mr. I in this scene at the Penrith.  Yet everyone else stayed unflappably British and not a tea cup was broken nor any jars of lemon curd disturbed.  But, according to this great website detailing the major filming locations of Withnail & I, this quaintest of tearooms doesn't even exist and is instead a chemist's shop.    

the power of tea

Steam rises from a cup of tea and we are wrapped in history, inhaling ancient times and lands, comfort of ages in our hands.

Faith Greenbowl

Pictured:  The Samovar -- William McGregor Paxton, 1926 (Wikimedia Commons)

maybe at a walgreens near you?

I noticed last week that one of the downtown Chicago Walgreens had a variety of de LISH brand teas for sale, including English Breakfast, Roobois Chai Spice, Acai Pomegranate Blueberry Green and Peppermint.  All at $2.99 for a box of 20 bags.  Nice price and variety, but I haven't been able to find anything beyond the English Breakfast on-line or at other Walgreen's stores.  So I'm not sure if we're a test market or these other kinds of tea are being discontinued.  Nonetheless, the de LISH Peppermint has a pleasant zing and scent, and it's always a good idea to have herbal peppermint tea in the house for upset stomachs or stuffy noses or just a calmly uplifting way to start or end the day.  Also a great tea to pair up with any form of dark chocolate.

tea cuisine

I'm really enjoying Tonia George's Tea Cookbook:  Sweet and Savory Recipes for Tea Lovers (Ryland Peters & Small, 2008).  Beyond tea-time treats of Earl Grey Biscotti and Chocolate Oolong Tea Loaf, there are main course recipes like Green Tea, Tofu, Noodle and Cress Soup, Mint Tea Couscous, and a Tea-Smoked Sea Trout that uses the rich flavor of Lapsang Souchong, which is indeed a smoky leaf.  There are quite a few other innovative recipe ideas as well, though it is a slim volume of just about 65 pages.  But surely well worth the current price of $5.18 on Amazon, especially because it has what so many of us who love cookbooks crave, i.e., beautifully-styled photos, these in particular by Martin Brigdale.  Another great thing about the book (besides the Chamomile Hot Toddy and Blackberry Tea Vodka) is that it puts you in the mindset of cooking with tea and using it in unique culinary ways, which truly does open up a whole new tea-flavored world.  There are lengthier tea cookbooks to aspire to, like Cynthia Gold and Lise Stern's Culinary Tea: More Than 150 Recipes Steeped in Tradition from Around the World, or Robert Wemischner's Cooking with Tea, but as just a simple intro this is a good bet -- and my copy is already being coveted by friends and family, tea-drinking or not.

tea with gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a classic of course, and soon to be a movie again, but it's also a wonderful summertime read.  It takes place in the summer; it has gorgeous summer imagery along with irony and occasional humor; and it has a tea scene that's pivotal to the plot.  When Daisy and Gatsby reunite after so many years, it's at Nick's not so lavish little rented house in the shadow of Gatsby's mansion.  And it's for the pretense of tea, and since the tea is at Nick's it probably wasn't much more than orange pekoe with lemon slices and sugar cubes.  Not champagne, not bootleg gin, just tea.  Then "[a]mid the welcome confusion of cups and cakes a certain physical decency established itself", and fates really start to intertwine.  You might want to try the iced version of the classic pekoe tea and lemon while reading or rereading The Great Gatsby, like maybe the old standards of Lipton or Red Rose, brands that had and have been around since the late 19th century.  But just remember, you can drink the old school brew but you can't repeat the past, old sport, no matter how you try.

Pictured:  Deco Tea by Michael L Kungl -- click here to buy a copy of your own at art.com!