Tea and ??????

I love tea.  In fact, I drink tea all day long.  I do not like coffee and discovered I can't drink it because it does something to my stomach but tea?  Ohhh yes!  I adore it but I prefer my tea straight, not flavored for the most part.  In fact, I just made a fresh cup of tea right before I started this entry.  Its a lovely Capital of Heaven Keemun.

I absolutely adore having a fresh hot cup of tea with homemade shortbread.  The richness of the shortbread is countered by the unsweetened tea so its like sitting in paradise while the blizzard is raging outside.  The flavors tickle the tongue that makes me want to melt.

It took me a while to figure out how to make the shortbread so it tasted like my favorite brand.  The recipes I found all called for either granulated sugar or fine sugar but when I used them, the cookies just didn't taste right.  Even the homemade ones I've purchased at Highland games just didn't taste right.  One day, I tried powdered sugar because it was the only type of sugar I had and voila!  The result was absolutely perfect.  I think the powdered sugar dissolved faster and dispersed better than any other type of sugar.

The other food I love having with my tea is not crumpets.  I love scones but not the scones that taste kind of like Bisquick with stuff added into it.  The scones I learned to make when I was overseas were much richer and fell apart.  They didn't taste like a variation of American biscuits.  I seldom buy scones in the United States because they just don't taste right.  So I make my own.

Both shortbread and scones taste so much better with hot tea.  I prefer a straight unsweetened tea if I'm drinking it hot but if its cold, I do enjoy certain flavored teas.  Not the flavored tea that has the flavor put into the tea itself but the varieties with the apple, mint, orange or cinnamon bark mixed with the tea.  Many of those I'll drink cold over ice because the flavors make it more of a tropical experience.

I drink the store brands of tea at work when I don't have time to savor the flavors but when I'm home?  I indulge in the specialty teas so I have an experience every time I drink it.