A cup of tea supposedly "solves everything." I don't know how true that is, but I know that when I'm feeling cold, sluggish, or just plain tired, nothing beats wrapping my hands around a warm 'cuppa' (of?) English Breakfast.
At home, it's usually some Ceylon (aka Sri Lankan) variant of black tea with milk and a lil bit of sugar. When I'm out, I opt for the steeped tea from Tim Horton's - 2 milk:1 sugar ratio (I fume when they give me the reverse) - but for special occasions (aka pay day), I go for Starbucks' vanilla rooibos tea latte. It is the most delicious combination of an herbal tea and milk I have come across thus far (and at $4 for a grande, it better be good :P). I once tried to cut costs by making my own tea latte by adding milk to the vanilla rooibos herbal tea (about $2) - BAD idea!
Some day, possibly when I retire from whatever it is I plan on doing from now to age 60-ish, I would love to own a tea shop. I visited one in Paris, about 4 years ago, and fell in love with the atmosphere of such a place. It's not as urban or modern as your regular coffee shop, but still refined and welcoming in its own way. In addition to serving a variety of teas, I would have tea cakes and cookies made with almonds, lavender, lemon and ginger, to name a few ingredients, and maybe even some topped off with real flower buds!
And there you have it, another favourite item of mine. As that crazy old witch lady from the Bugs Bunny Cartoon once said, I enjoy: "a cup of tea...a cookie and you-hoo!"
"You" know who you are ;)
